


Alone in This War

by victoriousscarf



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Battle of Five Armies, Execution, Groundhog Day, Multi, lots of death so much death, pretty much everyone dies at least once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:17:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He went to sleep that night numb, Ori pressed against his back and Nori behind him, with the smell of death still around him and did not dream.</p><p>When he woke up the air was clear, the sky still dark and he was bedded down in armor he had not been wearing. Pushing himself up too abruptly, he rubbed a hand over his eyes and looked around at the guard tower in Erebor where they had bedded down and waited for war to come to them.</p><p>Thorin stood, framed against where the dawn was starting to appear, talking quietly to the raven and Dori could not breathe. His fingers were shaking against the cold stone and he could not catch his breath for Thorin stood alive in front of him, hair long and not matted down in blood, flesh and body whole.</p><p>(Groundhog Day AU in which Dori relives the Battle of Five Armies until he gets it right)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Visions Do Not Work That Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lamentforboromir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamentforboromir/gifts).



> So this [particular post](http://victoriousscarf.tumblr.com/post/71608867983/tropes) led to [this horrible response.](http://victoriousscarf.tumblr.com/post/71613102670/re-trope-meme-im-a-sucker-for-a-good-groundhog)
> 
> ["Who Will Save You Now"](http://youtu.be/vI0FETSHAv4) by Les Friction is pretty much this story's theme song, it has been on excessive repeat and is likely to remain so. 
> 
> Seriously. The warnings are there for a reason though.

It was not until after Thorin died that the magic began its work.

Dori sat outside the tent, pressed between Ori and Nori in an exhausted muddle after a full day of counting the dead and handing bandages to Oin, checking on what wounds he was qualified to deal with, and spending even more time hauling corpses. It was not often Dori regretted the strength he had but the piles of orc bodies seemed endless, and it was forever worse to move one only to find a dwarf or elf body beneath.

They were there when Gandalf stepped out of the tent, long beard ratty and tangled and his shoulders stooped. “Thorin is dead,” he said and Dori watched as Bilbo cried, horribly hating the small creature and feeling like his heart was just getting heavier and heavier.

The hobbit who understood nothing. The hobbit who had betrayed them. The hobbit who had taken the Arkenstone like it was his to give away, like it could have been his share. The hobbit who meddled in their affairs and now cried at what he had wrought.

But he cried when Dori did not, and he felt Ori’s hand squeeze his and still felt only numb.

The line of Durin was broken. He wondered if Balin could cry as easily as the hobbit.

He went to sleep that night numb, Ori pressed against his back and Nori behind him, with the smell of death still around him and did not dream.

When he woke up the air was clear, the sky still dark and he was bedded down in armor he had not been wearing. Pushing himself up too abruptly, he rubbed a hand over his eyes and looked around at the guard tower in Erebor where they had bedded down and waited for war to come to them.

Thorin stood, framed against where the dawn was starting to appear, talking quietly to the raven and Dori could not breathe. His fingers were shaking against the cold stone and he could not catch his breath for Thorin stood alive in front of him, hair long and not matted down in blood, flesh and body whole.

When he turned his head he saw Ori and Fili huddled against the wall, heads bent together, Fili darting looks toward his uncle and Ori watching only him, fear in his eyes and his hands gripping Fili’s.

Dori had never had vivid dreams, and he had spent months rolling his eyes at Oin and Gandalf, mocking Oin’s portents and doddering belief that the world made sense and could be understand in the movement of water and flight of birds. At least, he had told himself, Oin was not Radaghast.

Which meant he had no idea how to even explain the memory of battle, the sound of screaming and clashing metal and carrying Fili’s body off the field and watching Thorin slip away to death. Pushing himself up, he shoved his bedroll back, armor clanking and making Thorin turn to look back at him.

“Is is early still,” he said and the sound of his voice made Dori’s breath stutter in his chest as he stood. “Dain should arrive today.”

“We must not fight,” Dori said, the words slipping past his lips before he could stop them and Ori and Fili both stared at him, Ori’s eyes wide in shocked fear as the rest of the company stirred and seemed to awake.

“What?” Thorin asked, and his voice was neither as quiet or kind as it had been before.

Dori’s throat worked, but his mind was too full of questions of what was happening to be able to articulate the sheer danger they were all in.

When he did not speak, Thorin frowned. “Have you not been paying attention to the last few days?” he asked, stepping forward and Dori almost took a step of his own back. “They are the ones seeking war by coming here with weapons and gold lust in their hearts. They demand our treasure at sword point, these men of the lake, who bring elves with them who have no say in this!” His voice rose as he spoke and Dori quaked but did not move. “You know these things. Why then do you say we should not fight?”

“Because,” Dori said, as Ori crept up behind him, Fili leaning against the stones where he had been, and Nori sat up, blinking sleep out of his eyes. “Because something worse is coming,” and Oin was shaking out his trumpet and frowning at him, Dwalin coming to stand with Thorin and Dori felt like someone was stabbing him in the chest when Kili sat up, hair wild around his face and eyes wide as he tried to wake himself up.

“Something worse?” Dwalin asked, Thorin’s eyes narrowed. “Something worse than these usurpers who want to take our treasure, the wealth of our nation?”

“Bolg,” he said, and the others were mostly awake and watching him. “He’s bringing an army of orcs and wargs and bats even. We can’t fight the elves and men, we have to prepare. When Dain arrives we have to start preparing our defenses and we might—“

“How could you possibly know this?” Thorin asked, Dwalin’s expression dark and Dori could see Balin quickly and quietly talking to the raven who looked as confused, bald head cocked to one side.

Dori opened his mouth and stopped, utterly unsure what had happened, if the battle had been a dream or if he had lived it and been sent back somehow through time. “I—I saw it in a vision,” he said and Oin gave him a disbelieving look.

“But you do not believe in them,” he said and Ori tugged on Dori’s elbow, trying to pull him back. “You mock the portents and prophecy.”

“Perhaps I only needed to experience one of my own to fully believe,” Dori said but Oin was shaking his head.

“Visions do not work that way,” Oin said and Dori stared at him in angry disbelief.

“You narrow minded, old—“ he started to sputter and stopped when Dwalin grabbed him by the back of his collar, shaking him and Dori barely restrained himself from turning around and throwing the taller dwarf off.

Dwalin’s look was anything but kind. “Perhaps you are a spy.”

“ _What_?” Dori managed, mind reeling and shock freezing him in place. The accusation was low and quiet but rang around their small guard tower, Bombur at the doorway from where he was coming in from another lonely night watch. Ori looked ill, and Thorin’s eyes were dark and closed off. “That doesn’t even make sense,” Dori said, voice tiny.

He had forgotten so quickly in battle the sinister way the gold sickness had driven them all almost mad until blood and tears washed it away.

“They have been hounding every step we’ve taken,” Thorin said, stepping forward and Dori’s stomach tightened in fear and anger. “They have found us at every corner, no matter where we traveled.”

“You can’t be serious,” Dori said and Thorin’s expression was answer enough for that. “Thorin—“ he tried because he had always believed in their exiled king, had always trusted in where he led.

“How else would you know?” Thorin asked, stepping back and Dori tried to follow him, forgetting Dwalin still holding him back. Behind him, Ori started to protest and Fili instantly dragged him back, shaking his head slightly. Dori wondered if the prince had ever seen the same look in Thorin’s eye, or if he just knew to be afraid.

“Have you all lost your minds?” Nori demanded, no one there to drag him back. When he started forward, Dwalin turned, his speed still a surprise and shoved him back, hard enough Nori almost lost his footing.

Even though Dwalin had released him, Dori did not move, watching Thorin. “Then why would I tell you now?” he asked, idly noting how hollow his voice sounded.

“Guilt’s a funny thing,” Thorin said and Dori laughed, the sound an ugly echo around the small space, Thorin’s eyes narrowing at him.

“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” he asked, remembering Thorin’s face when Fili and Kili fell around him, unable to protect him as much as Thorin had been unable to save him. The princes had not even agreed with the idea of war, and Dori wondered why neither of them spoke up now, or if they understood their uncle’s darkness better than anyone there.

He remembered the way the small hobbit had sat outside Thorin’s tent and sobbed, a broken and quiet sound.

They all knew more about guilt than they had an April morning, almost May.

Thorin’s anger was palpable in the air between them. “I am not a spy,” Dori said again.

“We cannot risk that,” Thorin said, and Dori realized that Bilbo had only betrayed him the day before, and been threatened with being thrown off the mountain side for stealing only a stone. And now Thorin thought he had been betrayed again so soon.

No wonder his face looked carved from stone.

Dwalin’s hands were suddenly back, pushing him to his knees and Dori vaguely realized he could struggle, he could fight back but he only felt tired down to his bones and as betrayed as Thorin looked. Behind him, he could hear a scuffle he assumed was Nori struggling with someone, and a pained and shocked sound he recognized as Ori.

The thought of his brother almost had him moving again, but there didn’t seem to be time.

“Thorin,” he said, and Thorin at least met his eyes as he felt a stinging pain at the back of his neck that blossomed into a pain more excruciating than anything else he had ever felt.

The pain swallowed up his entire world until he snapped awake, shaking all over and tears on his face to find the same rock ceiling above him, Thorin standing where he had been, talking to the raven and Dwalin snoring with his back to the wall near where Thorin was.

“Brother,” Ori said, and his fingers where on Dori’s face, feeling the wet tears and the way he shook. “Brother, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Rolling on his side, away from Thorin and away from Ori, Dori drew his knees up against his chest as much as he could in the armor he still wore.

Behind his back, the dawn came over the camped armies, sliding across the mountain.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more a prologue than a full chapter so bear with me on the rabbit warren of issues that are going to show up.


	2. Are We Going to Die Today?

Finally, Dori allowed himself to be coaxed back over by Ori, even Nori hovering by then, though he couldn’t stop shaking, one of his hands pressed against the back of his neck.

Just looking at the axe next to Dwalin made him want to throw up, or curl back up and not move until night fell. Slowly he sat up, Thorin glancing over and Dori refused to look at him, even as Ori fluttered around. “Dori, what happened?” he asked, face hovering in front of Dori’s. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, gently pushing Ori back. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re not a very good liar,” Nori said, sitting on his other side and Ori looked hurt.

“It was a bad dream,” Dori tried and in some ways it was as close to the truth as he could come. Thorin started to move over and Dori found himself shoving himself backward until his back hit the wall, legs braced in front of him. Ori and Nori looked after him in confused shock and Thorin had stopped dead.

“What is the matter?” he asked and Dori remained silent, mouth pressed together. This Thorin, the one who was ready to bring war to Erebor—justified or not—was not one Dori could trust. The first time he had lived this battle, Dori remembered standing with Thorin and agreeing with him. The elves had no part in this treasure except greed and so long as their armies stood at the gates like they refused to do when there were dragons than the men of Laketown had no right to make demands either.

Dori still believed that. But he had not realized the glint in Thorin’s eyes, the descent into something darker.

“He says he’s had a bad dream,” Nori explained.

“I thought you didn’t dream often,” Ori said, scooting after Dori, and reaching a hand out to touch Dori’s forehead.

Dori batted the hand away. “I’m not ill,” he said, though he was still shaking and his voice quavered.

“Then what’s the matter?” Ori pressed and Dori pushed him away again, trying to ignore the way Nori caught Ori as he tripped backward. Now all the dwarves that were awake looked at him, and it was evident from their expressions they all thought something was wrong with him.

“I need,” Dori started and shoved to his feet, armor clanking. “To just have some time.”

“But,” Nori started and across the small space Dwalin was looking at them, sleepy still but eyes dark and Dori bolted back into the mountain. A voice called after him and he kept going, scrambling over piles of gold and across heaps of treasure until he was pressed with his back against a wall and could no longer see the doorway to the guard tower.

Since waking he had not stopped shaking and now he held his hands out in front of him before clasping them around the back of his neck, burying his face in his knees as best he could, fingers pressed against the line of phantom pain.

He knew not how long he sat there, but there was time yet. He could remember the long hours of waiting, first for Dain to arrive and later for their moment at the turn of the tide to burst from the mountain.

Dori’s fingers only shook more to remember the way Thorin had stepped out, raising his sword and commanding the troops to him, highlighted against the low sun. That was still hours away.

Except that he could remember everything so clearly, so it could not have been a dream, nor a vision from what he understood those to be. He felt adrift and frightened, wondering if Gandalf would have any idea. He would even be willing to ask the other wizard with his tattered clothing and asymmetrical beard if it would mean getting any answers.

Flexing his hands, he focused on his breathing. “What am I supposed to do now?” he asked and the gold offered him no answers, the words only echoing over the large empty chambers that had once been home and work for hundreds upon hundreds of dwarves and now held only thirteen.

“Mahal, what am I supposed to do now?”

Finally, he pushed himself up, the weight of Erebor above him starting to feel like it was crushing his shoulders. On the walk back toward the guard tower, he kept running his fingers along the back of his neck, a line that had no physical marker.

When he reached the stairs he stopped to see Ori sitting, his feet dangling off the edge of the staircase. “I couldn’t find you,” Ori said, turning his head, hands braced on the edge. “But I figured you would be coming back.”

“I’m sorry,” Dori said, automatic for making Ori look at him with such sad eyes. There had been too many times when he had apologized to Ori when the boy was small, and Dori had been unable to explain why they had no food for supper that night.

Ori frowned at him and Dori wanted to pack him deep into Erebor and convince him to stay there no matter what happened. A scarf was pushed up underneath his chin and Dori remembered what it looked like with chunks missing, and the rest covered in dwarf and orc blood. His fingers reached out, almost pulling Ori with him but he changed the motion to resting his hand on Ori’s head, even though Ori’s frown only deepened.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dori said, dropping his hand enough to touch Ori’s cheek before drawing it away. “It was as I said, just a bad dream.”

“You don’t get those,” Ori protested. “Even after… after this,” he said, spreading an arm out to Erebor. “I don’t remember it, but I remember that mother and Nori would wake up sometimes shrieking, even when I was older and you would be there, implacable about what needed to be done.”

“Implacable,” Dori repeated in vague disbelief and Ori shrugged.

“You would tell them it was just a dream and to focus on the reality of the coming day,” Ori said. “And that’s just what you would do, wasn’t it?” When Dori’s eyes slid away he continued. “No matter what happened or what we had to do that day you would finish your braids and work until the sun set so long as there was work to be done.”

Dori breathed in, feeling his chest swell with it and let it out again. “I suppose that is one way of looking at it.”

For a moment, Ori looked down at his knit gloves, a pair Dori had given him a few years ago and made of a soft lamb’s wool that they had been unable to afford for many years prior. “Are we going to die today?” he asked, voice tiny and Dori violently startled.

“No,” he said, too much force behind the words.

Ori looked over his shoulder, making sure no one was there. “Because something’s wrong with Thorin. I think there’s something wrong with all of us,” he continued. “When I look at this treasure I keep feeling like something is underneath my chest bone, pulling me harder toward it. And it feels dark inside me. Like I want no one else to even look at what I’m looking at, but at the same time I know that can’t be right.” He looked down again and Dori sat down hard beside him. “It’s easier, where there’s air. But I’m not sure that feeling’s ever left Thorin.”

“The elf-king has no place here,” Dori said, a weak defense of Thorin’s adamant refusal to share even a coin with those at his gates.

“He promised the people of Lake Town though,” Ori said, looking over.

“That was before they came with an army to demand it,” Dori replied. “Now, it would only make him a weak king, to give in so easily to armed demands.”

“I don’t care,” Ori said and now Dori looked up the stairs, Thorin’s dark eyes and Dwalin’s ready defense of him at the front of his mind. “I don’t—I don’t want us to die for it.”

“We won’t die,” Dori said but it was weaker than earlier. At least he knew Ori would make it until nightfall.

“Fili might,” Ori said, fingers twisting up in his scarf and Dori felt like someone had punched all the air of his lungs, the brief flicker of seeing Fili and Ori bent together coming unbidden to his mind. “He’s reckless—they both are. And I do not like the way Thorin is willing to throw us all at this war.”

Dori had carried Fili’s body off the field, Dwalin having been the closest to Thorin when they had all fallen and thus the one to take the wounded king off the field, yelling for Oin and the healers as loudly as he could. But there had been no hope for Fili or Kili then, eyes already empty as they looked at the darkening sky. It had felt wrong to leave them on the field among so many orcs, even though it was almost dark and they were working by torchlight.

So Dori had taken Fili to lay him by the gates of Erebor. He had fussed off the blond braids to no avail, trying to make them look anything like they had in life, and Gloin had carried Kili. “They were such good friends to my Gimli,” he said and had cried while Dori had kept fussing uselessly.

The prince had been heavy, but so limp he almost felt light, even with the armor and pounds of muscle on him.

And now Dori could do nothing but silently stare at his brother who finally glanced over. “Dori, something is wrong,” Ori said, turning so his knees knocked against Dori’s. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Dori said, wondering if he had missed the way Ori had clung to his shoulder, crying like Gloin but the sobs had been deep in his chest, obvious that every breath hurt.

“Stop lying to me,” Ori snapped, eyes confused and angry.

“I can’t,” Dori said and his hands automatically went to the back of his neck again.

“But you are lying about something,” Ori said, eyes too shrewd as he searched Dori’s face. “There is something you won’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry,” Dori said, woefully inadequate.

Taking a deep breath, Ori nodded slightly. “You say that for everything,” he murmured and reached for Dori’s hands as Dori dropped them from his neck. “Please, at least tell me this means you will be careful.”

“I will,” Dori said and it did not feel like a lie.

They sat a few moments more before Ori pushed himself to his feet first, holding a hand down for Dori to help him to his feet. “The others will be worried too,” Ori said.

“If they noticed,” Dori said and Ori did not disagree. They were all far too on edge, waiting for the storm to break above them.

The moment they stepped up, Nori appeared by Dori’s side, pulling on one of his arms but when Dori shook his head, Nori remained silent. He watched as Fili wandered over, trying to not be obvious as he leaned down to talk to Ori but now Dori had seen it, he could not fail to see it again. He wondered if they had all survived, what might have happened or if they would have danced around each other for many more years.

Even when Thorin called Fili back over, he lingered for a moment more, whispering something to Ori before clanking back to his feet and joining his uncle and brother, an uneasy frown on his face.

Dain arrived shortly after and was blocked from the mountain. For as long as he could, Dori sat by the wall, listening to the others whisper in excitement. When he had to, he pushed himself to his feet and joined the throng but while they watched the coming of Dain and Gandalf’s sudden announcement with surprise and a flurry of cries and new plans, he stood still and stony faced through it all. There were still hours to come and he was not sure how he could bear the hours still to wait.

He recalled leaning over the ramparts, watching the battle unfold in front of them just as everyone else did now but he leaned against the stone instead, twisting his hands around and his stomach lurched when Dwalin looked over at him.

“Thorin,” he said, as the others finally moved back, preparing busily and Thorin turned to him.

“I need you,” Thorin said, a heavy hand landing on his shoulder. “You will be so important in this battle, in breaking down the wall.”

Dori stared at him, felt the hand on his shoulder and wondered how warm it would be without layers of metal in the way. “You have to be careful,” he said and Thorin’s eyes darkened.

“It is not the king’s job in the middle of war to be careful,” he said. “I must fight for my kingdom and if that takes my life—”

Dori lunged forward and Thorin’s eyes widened as Dori took his shoulders and shook him. “No,” he said and Thorin shoved him back, Dori pressing in close again. “No, Thorin, it’s not the king’s right to die. You have to live.”

“There is a war out there,” Thorin said, throwing a hand out over the ramparts and craning his neck down to glare at Dori. “It is not my choice.”

Dori wanted to shake him, chest hurting. If only he had more time than just one day to convince Thorin not to go to war, enough time to stop the elves and men from marching on their gates as enemies, enough time to stop Bilbo from stealing the Arkenstone and giving it to Thranduil.

“You can choose not to fight,” Dori said and Thorin looked infuriated.

“They are losing,” he said. “They are standing out there and losing this war and you would have me stay here in my mountain as if I could do nothing for these people?”

“Your people need you,” Dori said, ignoring the sound of footsteps that came up the stairs and then stilled. He did not dare look away from Thorin’s eyes to see who was waiting, though he felt a tremor and hoped it was not Dwalin. He wanted to press his fingers against the back of his neck again. “We need you to live.”

“Why do you sound so certain I have every intention of dying?” Thorin asked, though his voice had dropped and Dori stepped away.

“That was not my intention,” he said, dropping his eyes and Thorin looked beyond him.

“What is it, Kili?” Thorin asked and Dori finally allowed himself to look over.

Kili stood in the doorway, shuffling his feet and looking uncomfortable. He still looked pale around the eyes and moved stiffly but his hair flung itself around his face, as wild as ever. “Dwalin wanted to tell you,” he said. “There’s been progress made. We’re almost ready for what you ordered.”

And Thorin turned away from Dori, back to the battle raging below them and nodded. “Thank you, Kili,” he said, voice hoarser than it had been and Dori realized, viscerally like he never had before, how much Thorin did not want his nephews on this battlefield and how little that mattered in the end.

“There must be another way,” Dori said when he heard Kili patter away down the stairs, steps heavy but quick.

“They are losing,” Thorin repeated, looking back over the field where dwarves and men and elves fell if not together than upon the same field. “There has never been a choice.”

He swept down after Kili and Dori stayed for a horrible moment at the guard tower. He remembered standing below with the others, waiting for Thorin, waiting to march into battle behind him and the anticipation and fear he had.

At least he had thought himself afraid then but now the fear ran even deeper, desperate.

So he hurried down the steps after Thorin, taking his place by Ori and Nori, following Ori’s gaze to Fili whose hair shone golden even in the almost darkness as they prepared to drop the wall and step onto the field as a company one last time.

So when Thorin stepped out onto the fallen wall and commanded the entire remainder of the forces to rally to him, even elves scrambling to stand with him, Thranduil’s long hair mussed around his face and cold fury in his eyes, Dori followed him. He tried to stay on Thorin’s heels, tried to keep Fili and Kili from being overwhelmed.

But he was still only one dwarf, strength or no, and there were no safe places pressed up against Bolg’s guard with their spears and cruel carved swords. He saw Fili fall first, golden hair red and his head nearly shorn off. There was a scream that must have been Kili that cut off too abruptly to have simply stopped and Dori turned to see Thorin and Bolg squaring off.

Desperation in his chest bone, Dori sprung forward only in time for Thorin to be struck around the head, falling dazed to the ground with blood on his temples and other wounds on his sides, armor torn clean through and Dori wondered how long it may take him to die this time.

He slammed into Bolg, strength taking even the tall orc down, teeth with no lips drawn back into a snarl and Dori shoved the mace he held, his own weapon lost somewhere on the field, down into the middle of the orc’s face, feeling the steel plates in his head giving way and a crunching, gurgling sound being the last thing he heard before pain tore through his sides, down his back and he fell.

Landing half on top of Bolg’s body, he felt breath rattling in his chest, blood in his mouth as he looked across to where Thorin lay, shadowed eyes looking toward him and the last thing he saw where those eyes slipping further away, and a roar he remembered from Beorn as he stormed onto the battlefield.

He opened his eyes to the ceiling of the guardhouse, Thorin bent over as the sun rose behind his form.

So Dori tried again that day.

And the next.

And the next. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Fili and Ori sneaked in there, stealthy little bastards.~~
> 
> Please feed the author on your way out, especially as today was the first day of a new quarter of grad school--already filled with scheduling conflicts and flu shots


	3. Like I Forgot We Were Fighting For a Home

Dori woke up, angry and hurting, shaking off the pain of a sword to the heart as he sat up. Thorin looked over at him, hair wild around his face and that made Dori’s chest hurt even more than before.

Burying his face in his knees, he entertained the image of what Thorin would look like, had he ever been crowned on the throne of Erebor. He had once told Dori that he would only grow his beard out again when he had revenged his line, and when their home had been taken back. Only then would he come out of mourning.

Dori imagined Thorin with a full beard, the raven crown on his head and draped in dark blues and silvers. He rebuilt the walls of Erebor, the grand throne room that stretched on forever and was filled with the echoes of memory.

Only that image allowed him to push himself up to his feet, not even bothering to look over at where Ori and Fili sat together. One morning he had watched them for as long as they sat together, cursing himself as every type of fool.

Approaching Thorin, he leaned against the stone, pushing his face out toward the sun. “Have you ever really appreciated a sunrise?” he asked, dawn spreading across the land in front of them, creeping up the sides of the mountains.

“It is only a sunrise,” Thorin said, turning his head to glance out before focusing back on the raven.

Dori caught his arm, and suddenly Thorin’s intense gaze was on him, focus only on him. “You should watch it,” Dori said. “Tomorrow’s will be red, most like.”

“We have not gone to war yet,” Thorin said, though his voice was quieter than any time Dori had heard it since the beginning of the Quest. “There is no…”

“Do not lie,” Dori said, hand still gripping Thorin’s arm. “Not to me and not to yourself.”

“They began this,” Thorin ground out.

“Just watch the sunrise,” Dori said and Thorin turned his head, though Dori did not take his eyes off him, the long line of his throat and the fall of his black and silver hair around his shoulders and the strands sticking to his pale skin.

“The sun has almost fully risen,” Thorin said, voice low.

“But it hasn’t’ fully yet,” Dori said, throat convulsing. “It is not fully risen.”

After a moment of silence, Thorin turned back to look at him. “Dori,” he said and there was a clatter and Dwalin rose, approaching them. Dori dropped his hand abruptly and stepped back, Thorin looking first at Dwalin and then back to him.

“What news this morning?” Dwalin asked and Dori no longer ran from the sight of him but he still slid further back and hated the fact that Dwalin barely even noticed.

Thorin did though.

“There is little news,” he admitted, watching Dori so that even Dwalin turned to consider him. “Dain will arrive within hours.”

“If he can reach the mountain,” Dwalin said. “We could withstand any siege.”

“Aye,” Thorin agreed. “He brings supplies with him. We could hold out for months, long enough for all the dwarves to come to our aid.”

“Thranduil will never let them pass,” Dori said and both Dwalin and Thorin turned to him. “They will not reach this  mountain.”

“Then we will have a proper war,” Dwalin said and Dori looked away, light bright across the valley and on the side of the mountain now.

-0-

Dori climbed the piles of gold, heading toward the throne room. He had only entered it once while Erebor stood, having seen Thorin standing tall and proud by his grandfather and he wanted to recapture that memory. He felt like a drowning man grasping at the light of the sky that he could never reach, needing anything to keep fighting for one more breath, one more push.

His feet were heavy on the stairs as he walked up, coming out on the long pathway to the throne.

For a long while he stood staring at the throne, with the gaping hole where the Arkenstone once was before slowly approaching, his steps echoing along the chamber.

“Dori,” Thorin said behind him and he turned when he was halfway there.

“You followed me,” Dori said in obvious surprise. “With Dain coming—”

“He is still hours away,” Thorin said, walking toward him. “Something troubles you.”

“Something troubles us all, I think,” Dori replied, looking back at the throne rather than Thorin, as the other dwarf drew abreast of him. “I had hoped,” he started and stopped.

Thorin watched him in silence for several moments. “What do you hope for?” he asked, turning his head to meet Dori’s eyes.

“That I might remember what is worth fighting for,” Dori said, the sound seeming too loud within the echoing chamber.

Shifting, Thorin stepped closer. “Had you forgotten?”

“Sometimes it feels like I have,” Dori said. “This quest,” he added quickly at the darkening despair in Thorin’s eyes. “It has lasted so long. I have forgotten what it was like before, when we had no home, no great kingdom to call our own. We wondered halfway across the world for a place to take us in. It feels like I forgot that we were fighting for a home.”

Thorin reached forward, hand resting heavy on Dori’s neck and around the back of it in what was almost a brotherly gesture. Dori barely resisted turning enough so that Thorin’s hand would slide along the back of his neck where the pain of Dwalin’s axe had never seemed to fade away, despite the dozens of mortal wounds he had received since.

“We must fight for our home,” Dori said and his voice sounded hollow. “I would fight to see you king,” he added even more quietly and Thorin stared at him. “We should get back,” Dori said, turning abruptly when Thorin did not speak for far too long.

Thorin’s hand darted out to grab him, pulling him back. “Dori,” he said but Dori did not meet his eyes. “You believe in me then?”

“None of us would be here if we did not,” Dori said, meeting his eyes. “We would have found a way to slip away in the night,” and he hated himself for saying it at seeing Thorin’s eyes darken so at the mention of Bilbo and it was like a wound had been reopened and was bleeding within Thorin’s gaze. “Or we would not have come on this quest to begin with.”

Thorin dropped his gaze. “I have failed you all,” he said. “Leading you to this place.”

“This place is our home,” Dori said and if he had not known better he would think Thorin’s eyes were almost shy as they came back up to stare at him. “And you have always been our king.”

They stared at each other until Dori turned away, throat clogged. “We should get back,” he said and Thorin followed him in silence the whole way. They cleared the guard house just as Dwalin let out a cry that Dain could be seen, Oin and Gloin pressing around to see, gladly confirming the tidings.

-0-

“Have you ever watched the sun rise?” Dori asked Thorin the next morning, images of Dwalin lying cut almost in half in a spreading pool of blood and surrounded by orc corpses, and Nori screaming in pain to have lost an arm, and Oin’s eyes dark and heavy as he tried to carry Gloin from the field by himself all fresh in his mind.

“No,” Thorin said and did not bother to look so Dori watched it rise alone, bending out as far as he could, to feel the sun as soon as he was able.

-0-

The battle swirled around Dori, as it had so many times before and he wanted to run back through the mountain, past the collapsed wall and hide in the dark cervices. The Eagles would come, Beorn would come, and he had no fear that they would lose the day.

But as Bifur neatly beheaded an orc beside him and the splay of black blood hit his face all he wanted was to never fight again. He had never believed in the epic poems, the tales warriors told each other. He had more respect for those who bowed their heads and did the work needed to keep their people safe and alive.

He had been willing to fight when called, as all dwarves were.

But now he wanted to sink into the bloodstained ground and not rise again until the battle was over and he would have to face it no more.

Instead he pivoted around, swinging the bola he found in the treasure into another orc’s face, toppling it over and turning again to find Fili fighting in desperation against several orcs, far too many for him and he was surrounded. His helmet was lost somewhere far over the field and Dori flung himself forward, slamming into one of the orcs and throttling him with the cord of the bola, snapping his neck back hard enough to break it before swinging it at one of the other orcs.

“We cannot stay here!” he yelled at Fili, who held one dwarf sword and a curved orc blade in his other hand. “The others are regrouping with the mountain to our backs and we must go!”

“I will not leave him!” Fili cried and Dori finally noticed Kili, almost torn to pieces and already looking cold. Not too far away a red haired elf was fighting her way toward them, fury and cold rage in her eyes.

Dori darted forward as Fili slew another orc, grabbing him by his coat and shaking the prince. “This is why your line always dies!” he yelled and Fili froze. “We have to fall back. You can do nothing for him here.”

“I cannot leave him here,” Fili said, and even over the din of battle, Dori could hear his voice breaking.

“I’m sorry,” Dori said, turning in time to catch an orc jumping at them with one of the ends of his bola. “I’m sorry, Fili,” he repeated as the elf reached them, tall and glorious even on the field of battle. When she looked down, Dori imagined her fury became even colder. “We have to get him back,” he said, desperation in his voice and hoping that for once and elf would listen.

“I will help cover for you,” she said, knives darting out of their sheathes faster than Dori imagined possible, impaling two orcs in the throat before she drew her bow again, quiver filled with bow orc and elf arrows, even several that looked stouter like they had been of dwarf make. Dori wondered almost hysterically if any of them had once been Kili’s.

He dragged Fili with him for several paces before the prince finally ran with him, the elf still behind them, using blade and arrow to keep the orcs at bay while Dori covered the front and Fili ran his swords through any who dared approach them.

They reached the mountain, all three turning at one as the eagles swooped down and Dori looked up in amazement, because Fili still stood beside him, red in his golden hair and teeth bared in a snarl as he swung his swords, a rent in his armor but Dori knew enough of battle wounds to guess it was superficial.

The three of them kept fighting with stone to their back until the orcs thinned, streaming away toward the hills and eagles chasing them all the way through, a rout that Dori knew would end in none escaping.

The sun was setting as Fili finally collapsed, leaning on both his swords to keep himself at least partially upright as he bent over.  “Tauriel!” another elf called, running toward them and Dori recognized his blond hair from the forest.

She glanced at him before turning and running with light feet back over the battle field and Dori knelt down by Fili until he could finally see her red hair stop where they had been, where Kili had fallen and the blond elf followed her, his steps heavier and looking around at the dead bodies as if he could not decide which was a worse sight—the orc corpses or those of the elves, men and dwarves.

“Kili,” Fili said, voice broken as he leaned on his swords and took gulping breaths and Dori could only stand and stare at him. None of the line had ever survived the battle before, falling together and the sight of Fili stained in blood and alive made Dori’s breath stop. He looked desperately over the field, looking for Dwalin or Dain or those who most often carried news of Thorin’s death with them.

He almost ran forward when he found Dwalin, his steps heavy over the field. Except that there was a body in his arms and Dori slowed to a stop as he passed, blood matted down over Thorin’s face and neck, armor rent and missing. Dwalin gently laid him down and turned to where Fili had only slowly raised his head.

“We could not save him,” Dwalin said, and Fili rose on shaking feet, tears already having streaked his face through mud and blood as he knelt down by his uncle. “You’ll be King Under the Mountain now.”

Fili’s gaze darted quick silver quick up to Dwalin’s face, before back down to Thorin, reaching a shaking hand out to touch Thorin’s face, his skin already cold and Dori stood behind him, shocked and frightened.

The battle was over.

And Fili was alive.

The line of Durin had not broken for there was still a direct heir, though young and golden and so little like Thorin with his heavy brow and darker heart. When confronted with a dragon horde, Fili and Kili both had turned away, picking up harps and grinning at each other before sitting on a mountain of gold and paying only attention to their music.

But now Fili would play alone.

Dori shook at the idea that maybe this was it. Even if he had not saved Thorin he had saved a King Under the Mountain. Perhaps whatever dark curse was at work only required the life of one of them. Sinking down to his knees, not daring to approach Thorin any closer, he sat behind Fili, who did not move as the sky slowly turned darker.

Many of the dwarves were hunting through the field of battle, piling weapons and bodies and it was not always that Dori fell made it until nightfall but even this was becoming painfully familiar.

It must have been two hours later when he heard a scream, Nori calling his name.

Slowly he turned, and Nori motioned him over quickly, hair missing in chunks and a cut bleeding freely under his eye. “It’s Ori,” he choked and Fili moved like lightning before Dori even managed to push himself to his feet.

“Where?” Fili demanded and Nori pointed wordlessly, Fili running off and Dori following, several paces behind, Nori moving like he was a hundred years old behind them.

Fili ran into Oin, catching himself on him. “Ori,” he demanded and the old healer could only shake his head, braids matted down and it made him look infinitely smaller. Fili looked beyond him and Dori watched his face crumple, this one more death more than the prince could take without breaking.

Approaching the prince, Dori only felt like there was ice shoved into his heart. Either Oin or Nori had already tried to make Ori look at peace, though it was difficult with so much blood and such obvious wounds. Even the large scarf could not cover the missing armor, the missing flesh and bone. A warg bite, Dori managed to think as Fili sank down to his knees, pressing his forehead against Ori’s cold one and screaming in rage and grief.

Dori stumbled over, right into Nori who tried to catch him as they both fell, Dori clinging to Nori. “Where were you?” Nori asked, voice tight and Dori’s grip only tightened. “Where was I?” Nori continued, hollow. “Where were we when he was dying?”

Dori’s scream joined Fili’s but it was brief and one broken sound, one bell toll that ended as Fili fell into sobs, Oin trying to pull him away from where Ori lay.

“I can’t,” Fili babbled and Dori could only watch him from where he was pressed against Nori. “I can’t, I’ve lost it all, I’ve lost everyone. I can’t, stop it, I can’t.”

“You have to,” Oin said and Dori tried to get his shaking legs underneath himself enough to rise and stumble over. He smoothed a hand down over Ori’s brow, where the spring of lavender thread was still in one of his braids. Their mother had put it there, so many years ago when Ori had been such a small child and he had worn it ever since. Dori could remember the way Fili had teased him, when they were in their twenties and Ori had stood his ground, hands trembling around the leather note book he held.

But Ori had stood his ground even then and Dori helpless wondered if that was what had gotten him killed.

“You’re King now,” Oin said, and another broken sound escaped Fili’s throat. “You’re King now, you have to.”

Dori’s fingers moved from Ori’s brow, across the lavender leather and he stopped with a hand on Ori’s bloody neck, noticing a leather cord around his neck that he never had before. Gently, he tugged at it, a metal disk sliding up out of his armor, a necklace that had been hidden by his scarf and under his clothing and as Dori lifted it up, he felt a sob tear at his throat. The small golden disk he held had Fili’s emblem imprinted on it, an image of lavender on the other side, worked into the gold with amethyst and it was a beautiful if sentimental token.

Another cry tore through Fili to see it and Dori let it slide through numb fingers.

“I didn’t know,” Nori managed behind him, eyes on the pendent. “Dori, how did we not know?”

“We weren’t looking,” Dori said and he collapsed backward, Nori catching him again and wrapping his arms around Dori’s chest as he sagged back. “Where were we?”

For a while all they heard was the cries of the injured and the mourning and Fili’s muffled sobs. Dori wondered if he would be able to talk at all on the morrow.

And he realized that for the first time in weeks, he was afraid.

His fingers shook as he reached out again, touching Ori’s forehead. Looking up, he saw the red haired elf, Tauriel she had been called.

“I am sorry,” she said and her voice sounded too musical for dwarf grief, though it held a hint of rawness itself. “I brought him back,” he said and Fili looked at her, over Oin’s arm and most of his face hidden but his eyes. “Your brother,” she said and it sounded helpless. “It did not seem right to leave him there.”

Dori recognized his own logic like a punch to the gut.

He wasn’t sure how many more of those he could take before his body fell apart around him.

Fili could only nod and she looked at him another moment before turning, sliding back into the darkness.

“We should sleep,” Nori said.

“No,” Dori managed because he was too afraid. Too afraid that he had traded Ori’s life for Fili’s and that he would wake up and that he would still be in the camp with a cold body in front of him. Only hours ago he would have given anything for any other option and now he only feared.

“No,” Fili agreed as Oin finally released him to tend to what wounded he could help. Fili’s voice was already so hoarse Dori truly did doubt he would be able to speak.

Dori watched him for a moment and then gestured him over and slowly, as if every muscle hurt, Fili came to sit beside him and they sat with their shoulders pressed together through the night. At first, Nori sat on Dori’s other side, but he eventually wore out, and Dori spread a cloak for him to sleep on.

Before dawn slid over the mountain, Dori closed his eyes and drifted off for only a second.

He snapped his eyes awake to see the guard house ceiling over his face and his wail woke the rest of the company.

“What is it?” Thorin asked, jumping forward and Dwalin startled awake, hand already on his axe but Dori could only shake his head.

“Dori?” Ori asked, voice small and eyes wide beside him and Dori dragged him to his side, wrapping his arms so tightly around Ori that he let out a pained breath. “Dori, brother, I can barely breathe.”

“Dori!” Thorin repeated. “What is the matter?”

“Nothing,” Dori said, and his hand brushed up along Ori’s back, something that could be taken as comforting for himself and his brother except that his fingers brushed against a leather cord he had never known of and he buried his nose in the scarf Ori wore.

Thorin frowned but turned back to the raven, who had startled at Dori’s outburst.

“Brother, something is wrong,” Ori said, his nose jammed into Dori’s shoulder.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Dori said, voice watery.

“Shut up,” Ori muttered, hands resting on Dori’s armor. “That’s not a funny joke anymore.”

Dori nodded, not contradicting Ori and continued to hold on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Shut up I made myself cry twice writing this chapter. Imma going back to reading North and South and feeling sick now~~


	4. What a Splendid Job You Did of That

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musical selections! Blackstar by Celldweller, I'm Alive by the Disturbed and for all scenes involving Thorin and Dori, String Theory by Les Friction 
> 
> I am trying to estimate chapters. This is a very dangerous exercise.

Dori felt like rage was in his veins instead of blood, and the only thing that kept him moving each day was the anger at everyone who had a hand in this battle, and whatever magic kept him here.

He was going through the motions, so grim that even Ori was frightened of him one day and Dori barely even noticed. They waited for the wall to fall one day and when normally he had given comfort each time, he could barely look at Ori, who sounded so frightened.

Ori died one day and walked the next and Dori was starting to care about nothing.

He barely noticed the number of ways or the times he had died, or the times he had knelt on the hard stone, watching Thorin slip away again. Sometimes he went to sleep with Thorin still breathing, but the healers always shook their heads, murmuring softly that the king would probably not last through the night.

On the day that Kili and Fili stood bloody and battered and somehow still alive, Dori only stared at them, certain he would wake the next morning as he always did and he was right.

Early on, he tried to count the number of days, but there was no notch he could make that would be there the next morning, and even his dwarf sense of time and direction could do him no good in the end. But he thought it had been months.

Months of battle and of watching the Line of Durin break and break and his own family fall around him and he no longer cared. There were no tears or smiles or soft comfort yet only rage.

It was rage that drove him to the elf camp one day, for no reason he could determine. They were sore pressed and fighting desperately against the oncoming wave of orcs with their cruel swords and poison arrows.

Dori could not argue the elves did not fight well, lethal grace and long weapons moving quickly through the gore and almost always coming away clean of blood, as if they moved so quickly that nothing could touch the gleaming metal. Turning away from cleanly beheading an orc, Thranduil noticed him, brows arching and long blond hair looking mad in such a battlefield. “So you came out of your mountain then,” he said.

There had been no plan in Dori’s head, no reason for finding himself at the elf’s camp, but staring at Thranduil the rage inside him only built, burning out his insides. With all the strength he had left he slammed the bola into the elf king’s face and could find no cold pleasure even in seeing it crumple. He barely even felt the elf arrow and hoped that even though elves often withstood grave injuries the king was dead.

Waking up and staring at the dawn he wondered why he had even tried to do that. Vengeance gave him no satisfaction as he pushed his weary body back up.

-0-

The orc bore Dori down to the ground, biting at his throat with sharp teeth and Dori tried to shove it back. Even when he had no meaning, no purpose, it felt too pathetic to lie down and let a foul creature take a bite out of his throat.

He was far away from the others, unable to bear watching them die yet again and thus totally unprotected except for his own strength. Just when it seemed like the goblin’s teeth were touching his beard the creature gave a pathetic gurgle, a wound opening in its chest and spewing forth black blood as Dori scrambled back and the corpse collapsed.

In confusion Dori stared at the orc before Bilbo appeared before him, a glint of gold in one hand as he pulled the ring off, Sting stained with black gore. “Dori,” Bilbo said, his eyes wild and he still wore the mithril shirt Thorin had given him, his hair wild as if he had lost a helmet earlier. “Dori, I’m so glad to see you.”

Dori’s fingers twitched and he only turned away, looking over the field of battle in the setting sun, the desperate flurry of moves and counter movies, and the strange calm they stood in, higher on the mountain than Dori had realized.

“Dori,” Bilbo said and Dori startled to feel the small hand on his arm. “Dori, please, you’re not angry with me are you?”

Throat going dry, Dori looked back at him, the earnest fear on his open face making Dori’s stomach lurch and it was not in pity or kindness. “What?” he managed.

Bilbo drew his hand back, twisting them together. “I simply,” he started, stalling under Dori’s dark look. “With the stone.”

“The Arkenstone,” Dori corrected, bitterness leaking into his voice. “The entire reason you came on this Quest, the only task you were given.”

“I did much more,” Bilbo protested, eyes darting up and for a second there was fire in them before he started to fret again. “But alright, I suppose the point is valid. The Arkenstone then, yes. You must understand—“

“You betrayed us all,” Dori said and Bilbo’s expression was desolate.

He looked down, shuffling his feet slightly before raising his eyes. “I did not do it to betray you,” he said, jaw set and Dori remembered the way he had flustered and growled back in Bag End and the steely determination he had when the quest was going wrong around them all. “I wanted to help,” Bilbo continued. “I just wanted to stop a war from coming.”

“And what a splendid job you did of that,” Dori said, spreading one arm out across the plains below them, full of screams and clashing metal. Bilbo flinched and looked down, taking a step back.

“So you are angry then,” he said softly.

Dori snorted, before he turned and lifted up and orc’s sword and testing the balance of it before shoving the tip into the dirt and bracing himself against it. “You stole the very thing you came here to find,” Dori said. “You broke Thorin’s trust after everything. That stone was never yours to give.”

“I wanted to do right,” Bilbo said, eyes blazing and Dori bent in half over the sword, laughing suddenly. His chest felt rusty, like it was filled with stones that shook and Bilbo took a step back, eyes wide.

“Mr. Baggins,” Dori said, straightening and his smile was cold and sharp but he was no longer laughing. “I’m not sure there is such a thing anymore.”

Bilbo stared at him, his mouth dropping open slightly. “Surely there is,” he declared finally, a tiny nod to himself as if to confirm his assertion. “There has to be a good and right still in this world, or nothing’s worth fighting for.”

“What if nothing is?” Dori asked.

“You would never have come on this quest if there was nothing worth fighting for,” Bilbo shot back, not having to take the time to pause or think. “If there was nothing worth it in this world then you could have stayed home where it was comfortable and warm—”

“This is my home!” Dori yelled. “This is the only home that was ever warm or safe or comfortable for me. Not all of us are so lucky as hobbits in their hills.”

“This has nothing to do—” Bilbo started, mouth a thin line before he looked over Dori’s shoulder. “The eagles,” he said and Dori turned to look at where the eagles were swooping down, the sky stained red behind them. “The eagles have come!”

Dori watched them, still leaning against the sword, the flutter of their feathers as they fell on the orcs, tearing them from limb to limb and throwing them into the air. He watched the way the setting sun highlighted their feathers and claws, turning them into flaming phoenixes falling to the earth.

“We might win this battle yet,” Bilbo said, voice low and Dori did not turn to look at him.

“I thought you wanted peace,” he said, not as scathing as it would have been even moments before.

“And I was not allowed it,” Bilbo replied, voice cracking and Dori glanced at him before back down below, taking in the twist of his mouth and unshed tears at the corner of his eyes. “I would rather we win, if war is unavoidable.”

“We aren’t going to win,” Dori said and Bilbo frowned over at him before following his gaze to where Thorin was fighting, tiny compared to Bolg and horribly distant from them.

“Thorin,” Bilbo said with such heartbreak in his voice that Dori shivered. “Thorin,” he repeated, more firm and suddenly Bilbo was moving, running down the hill and Dori thought distantly there would have been a time he would run after him, to protect him or to help him try and protect Thorin.

But before Bilbo could get more than a few steps down the side of the mountain, Thorin staggered and fell, Bolg crowing in triumph for only a moment before Beorn came tearing across the war.

Dori heard Bilbo’s cry as the sun disappeared below the horizon.

-0-

Dori found himself watching Fili and Ori, back pressed against the stone wall, the sun only barely in the sky outside the guardhouse. Their knees knocked together as they spoke, heads bent together and from this angle Dori could see them holding hands between their bodies. Fili was running the tips of his fingers over Ori’s knuckles, and Ori swallowed hard, eyes flickering up to meet Fili’s before dropping back to their hands again.

Occasionally Fili would look at Thorin, a quick glance as if to make sure he was not paying attention before looking back at Ori. At one point he looked toward Dori, startling to see him watching them so closely. He whispered something to Ori, who looked over in alarm, eyes widening and color rose on his cheekbones.

Dori thought there was a time this would have angered him to find out.

But now he only wondered how they might have told him if the battle had been won. What other signs he missed on their long journey.

Pushing himself to his feet, he turned away from them. Every gesture between them made his stomach clench and hurt, the small movements that showed they were familiar with each other, with touch and every movement designed to reassure and show affection.

Dori’s hands were shaking when he stopped next to Thorin. “Any news?” he asked, voice wooden because he knew already.

“Dain will arrive soon,” Thorin said and the raven jumped from one foot to the other, moving sideways.

“Any news from the North?” Dori asked and wondered why he bothered.

“No,” Thorin said, turning dark eyes toward him and Dori felt rooted on the spot. “Should there be?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Dori lied, hands resting against the stone in front of him, trying to ground himself in the feel of its weight, in the majesty of Erebor and the fact that even if his life was forever a single battle at least he was home.

Instead all he felt was an empty void stretching out before him.

“Dori,” Thorin said and Dori’s head snapped over. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” Dori said, automatic because there was nothing he could say that he had not already tried. Perhaps he could scream and cry and Thorin, shake him by his shoulders and slap him until he was willing to listen.

Thorin’s eyes were still dark as he watched him. “If there is to be a battle today, it will go well for us,” he said, voice low and firm in his own beliefs and Dori almost choked. “With Dain and his men the elves and men will not be willing to fight.”

“And if they are?” he asked and Thorin shrugged, as if brushing the thought away.

“Then we will fight and they shall not win. This is our home, Dori, and we will fight for it.”

For a long moment Dori stared out over the valley before the mountain, where in hours there would be screams and blood and too many elves and men and dwarves would fall and he would watch it over and over again.

 He thought of Bilbo, eyes blazing and every line of his small body tense as he declared there had to be something worth fighting for, some right in the world that was enough. He looked over at Thorin, watching the rise and fall of his chest and remembered seeing the same body lie so still, covered in blood and cold in the night, eyes closed.

“Thorin,” he said, voice low and wavering. It came out more desperate than he could recall sounding and Thorin’s head moved too quickly to stare at him. “Are you certain it’s worth fighting for?”

Thorin swallowed, the motion obvious and Dori stared at the bob of his throat. “Of course I’m certain,” Thorin said and Dori needed that grounding, that certainty. 

He fumbled out blindly for Thorin’s hand and Thorin looked down in shocked surprise, stilling when Dori found it and held on. “Thorin,” he said again and it was almost a sob, Thorin’s eyes snapping up to his face.

Thorin’s other hand came up, thumb resting below his eye and stroking his cheekbone. For a moment they stood frozen and Dori understood the way that Fili and Ori leaned together like there was nothing else between them and hiding in plain sight from all other eyes. He did not dare break eye contact with Thorin though, to see who was staring at them. “Why do you fear?” Thorin asked, eyes on his own hand, as if wondering how it came to be there, or admiring the look of his own skin against Dori’s.

“Because I do not wish to lose—“ Dori started and had to clear his throat. “Our King.”

“Is that all?” Thorin asked and Dori almost rocked back. He wanted to scream, pound on Thorin’s chest or tear his short beard out by the hairs.

Instead he tightened the grip he still had on Thorin’s hand and turned, dragging the king with him, thankful when Thorin fell into step with him, though Dori still did not turn to see if anyone stared after them. “You fool,” he muttered and felt Thorin tense behind him, though if asked Dori was not sure who he was calling fool.

They took the stairs down from the guard tower in silence and Dori turned away before they reached the gold horde, back toward another hallway, leading to where he thought he remembered living chambers being. He had no intention of exploring them until the end though, stopping finally at a random place in the long hall and turning back to Thorin.

“Dori,” Thorin said, and sounded almost wary. “You have never feared battle before and nor have I. Why do you fear today?”

“Because I can’t lose you,” Dori said, not even trying to pretend it had anything to do with Thorin being king anymore. When Thorin’s breath caught and his eyes shadowed Dori surged forward, hoping he had not misread Thorin’s motions. When their mouths touched, a barely there motion, he froze, suddenly afraid.

For a moment that stretched out in the frantic beating of his heart, they stood like that, Thorin’s hands by his sides and Dori leaning up to kiss him, the lightest pressure. His breath catching, Dori started to pull away when Thorin made a sound like he had been stabbed, like all the breath had been shoved out of his lungs. His hands came up, fingers digging into Dori’s carefully constructed braids and Thorin shoved their mouths together so hard Dori couldn’t breathe, he could only gasp and allow Thorin all the way inside his mouth.

Dori caught his hands on Thorin’s arms, bracing himself as Thorin craned his neck down and dragged Dori up to meet him. Dori’s groan was dragged out of him and Thorin’s answering rumble had his fingers scrambling on Thorin’s skin.

When Thorin drew away, Dori could only shake and stare up at him, the difference in their height never feeling as obvious as it did in that moment. “Thorin—”

“Why do you fear to lose me?” Thorin asked and Dori felt the shiver go all the way down his spine at how low Thorin’s voice was, at the heat of his fingers still muddled up in his braids.

“Because you are the only king that should rule here,” Dori said, voice quavering and Thorin froze before he started to draw away. “Because I’ve loved you,” Dori continued and stopped under the weight of Thorin’s complete attention. “For so many years,” he finished, voice reedy and Thorin pulled him up again, mouths colliding and Dori dared to raise his hands to thread his fingers through Thorin’s thick hair, feeling the few heavy braids brushing against his palms.

He dropped his hands when Thorin smeared his mouth down and along Dori’s jaw, shoving hard at his chest. For a moment Thorin looked at him in confusion, as if Dori was asking him to stop before he realized Dori was pushing him down. There was little grace in the way Thorin folded backward but as he dragged Dori with him, he hardly noticed.

“Thorin,” he groaned, bracing his hands on his chest as Thorin’s went to his hips. In the years that he had watched Thorin, he had never expected the easy way Thorin fell before him, dark hair spread out over the stones of Erebor and in any other life Dori would have fussed over the fact there were in a hallway, on a random floor.

Bracing himself up on his elbow, Thorin used his other hand to drag Dori’s mouth down to his, Dori settling more firmly down against his hips and he felt Thorin’s gasp against his mouth, the aborted upward motion of his hips.

Dori could remember the years of travel out of Erebor, the long road the dwarves traveled to the Blue Mountains, passing and trying to settle in countless places first. There had been weeks where he sat in a cart, Nori a child pressed against his side and watched Thorin’s back as he led. There had been other days where he held Ori as a babe as they walked, and he had watched Thorin fight for their people, arguing with the men of the cities they passed through and working as a smith for scrap metal.

So many years ago Dori had accepted he was in love. He had been sitting in a camp, Ori already wobbling around on his feet and staring into the fire when he realized and quietly absorbed the fact into his soul. He treated Thorin no differently the next day, stared at him no more than usual but his interest in all other suitors fell off and for the most part the suitors seemed to realize and understand that. Many in anger would demand to know who he loved instead, that person who did not accept him back.

But Dori had never told, especially not Thorin.

Now though, he had seen Thorin die countless times. He had held the cold lifeless hand and felt his entire world tilt away from him but knew he would persevere anyway, because he always had.

Yet Thorin had fallen so easily at Dori’s urging, and now pressed up desperately against him, sitting up all the way long enough to tear Dori’s armor off him, mussing his braids further. Dori did not dare to speak, only undoing the ties of Thorin’s clothing with shaking hands.

“How long?” Thorin asked, mouth pressed against Dori’s ear and he keened, fingers twitching against Thorin’s sides.

“Years,” he said, staring at the wall behind Thorin’s shoulder, even though he could feel the other pressed up everywhere against him.

“Why did you never say?” Thorin asked, fingers of one hand tracing along the pattern of Dori’s braids.

“Because I never expected this,” he said and Thorin drew back to look at him with dark eyes, Dori’s own drawn to meet his almost against his own will.

Instead of saying anything, Thorin only leaned forward to kiss him again and Dori’s hands moved wherever he could reach, the expanse of skin something he never expected to feel. Pushing Thorin back again, he leaned over to trace the edges of Thorin’s hair against the stone floor, the black dark enough to stand out against the green stone. Beneath him, Thorin’s chest heaved and he dragged Dori back down on top of him, slamming their mouths together.

Dori tried to imprint each sound, each movement Thorin made to memory. He allowed himself to worship, allowed Thorin in turn to do whatever he liked because he was certain enough that Thorin would not remember on the next sunrise.

“I need you,” he said, nose touching Thorin’s and Thorin was almost too far gone to notice, head banging back with a long moan. “You have to be worth fighting for. You,” he trailed off, burying his face in Thorin’s throat, starting to shake apart.

When Thorin rolled them over, twining their legs together lazily, Dori was still shivering, tremors running through his fingers and Thorin ran a hand down the back of his head and along the top of his spine, Dori’s shoulders twitching with Thorin hit the invisible line at the back of his neck. Kissing his forehead, Thorin drew Dori against his chest.

“I wish you had told me,” he rumbled and Dori bit his lip. “We could have had—” Thorin trailed off. “We will have years yet.”

Dori couldn’t breathe. “We?” he asked and Thorin cupped the back of his neck and bent down to kiss him, lazy and slow and it made Dori’s chest hurt at the tenderness of it. He had trouble remembering the last time Thorin had been anything like tender since they entered the mountain. His shoulders had been all hard lines and his voice barking orders. Even the arrival of his nephews, only hours before the army had appeared over the horizon had only softened his eyes for a moment.

“We,” Thorin repeated. “We will have so much time.”

Twining his hands through Thorin’s hair, Dori let out a long breath, considering the dark against his paler skin. Entwined in this hallway it felt easy for once to forget what waited still outside. “You have to survive first,” he said and Thorin looked down at him.

“No battle could keep me from you.”

Dori stared at him, wanting to pinch Thorin or himself, or shake Thorin and demand to know how he could be so kind and warm, and so lost to gold lust that he would throw his burglar off the mountain side.

When they could stay no longer, Thorin growing restless, Dori helped him put his armor back on, sweeping his hair over his shoulder and holding his breath when Thorin helped him smooth down his braids, tucking strands back in and redoing the back clasp.

“You have to be a good king,” Dori whispered and Thorin stopped to stare at him. Dori looked away and Thorin only brushed his thumb over his cheekbone again.

-0-

And still Thorin fell, even though Dori pressed forward, keeping Thorin at his side and back at all times. Dori watched him collapse, coughing blood and his ribs caved in so that they must have punctured his lungs. He threw himself up at the orc, knowing it was already useless and worthless. He was almost thankful when the world blacked out.

Pushing himself up, he glanced over to where Ori and Fili sat and then to where Thorin stood, the same distance in his eyes there had been every morning.

Leaning back, Dori stared at the ceiling, not crying though his chest felt caught in a vise.

Thorin’s warmth, his dark eyes already felt like a dream, running away from him at the sight of the morning sun. But as he lay there, for the first time in many mornings, he wanted again.

He started to plan.


	5. They Will Survive Everything

Ignoring the calls he could hear, Ori’s voice increasingly panicked and Nori’s taking on a note of fear Dori did not usually experience, Dori sat above the guard house, having climbed above it earlier while the others were leaving. His perch was perilous but it afforded him a view of much of the battlefield.

“If he is too much of a coward to fight, leave him be,” Dwalin snapped and Dori’s spine tensed, even though he was certain they could not see him.

“He is not a coward,” Ori said, voice so small Dori almost slunk back inside, leaning against the stone behind him instead as if the mountain itself could give him strength to keep going.

“You son of a bitch,” Nori snarled and Dori pressed his hands to the back of his neck. “He would never just leave, not,” and Dori could imagine the look Nori was shooting Ori below them. “Not us. Something’s happened.”

“Then we don’t have the time to worry about it,” Gloin said.

Dori could hear Nori snarl all the way down the stairs, Dwalin’s heavy bootsteps almost covering the sound of Ori’s quieter trend.

Leaning further into the stone, Dori rested the fingers of both hands against the back of his neck and focused on the field below him, the elves moving frantically into position, the dwarves of Dain guarding their flank. For an instant, Dori thought he could see a flash of wood and grey, Gandalf probably. Even though he had fought in the battle dozens if not a hundred times, he had never before looked at it from above, never saw the picture of it laid out before him.

He fell asleep on the mountain side at the end of the day, listening to the wails and lamentations below.

-0-

It took him only a week to survey the battle from every angle he could, all the places where it went wrong, all the places where it went right. The elves were too low, the dwarves not protected enough by the mountain itself.

On the seventh day he almost climbed the mountain again, fear lodged under his breast bone. But he had only given himself seven days to survey the battle and so forced himself to rise at dawn and slip out, not even looking at Ori and Fili, the tilt of Ori’s chin toward Fili. He did not look at Nori, snoring on his back still, or Thorin with his head bent toward the raven.

He stepped over Gloin who sat propped up with his head falling against his shoulder, and slid past where Bombur stood shivering.

“Wait,” Bombur called, seeing him out of the corner of his eye. “Where are you going?”

“Where I need to,” Dori said, already tying the rope he had brought off the wall.

“No,” Bombur said. “Bilbo did that too, you know. He told me he was willing to take the rest of my watch right here and then he ran off with the Arkenstone itself.”

Dori paused, glancing back at where Bombur watched him with narrowed eyes. “I certainly could not repeat that,” he said, thinking about Bilbo scampering away. “There are no other treasures that I could steal.”

“Then why are you leaving?” Bombur asked. “Why are you sneaking away?”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I trusted Bilbo,” Bombur said, face crumpled and Dori let out a long breath, the sun inching higher in the sky as he watched.

“Then all I can promise you is that I do what I must,” Dori said. “That I am doing it for peace, not more war. And unlike Bilbo, I have some small idea of how to achieve it.”

Bombur shifted, mouth twisted above his braided loop beard. “Do you think it shall come to war then?”

“Yes,” Dori said, too quickly. “It will come to war.” He could remember Bombur’s face, ashen and horrified when Dain arrived, the way his beard had been hacked at during battle, the wounds on his arms and in his belly at the end of the battle.

Bombur let out a long breath, looking down. “I don’t much want it to come to war.”

“No,” Dori agreed, tossing the rope over the edge. “Do not tell the others where I have gone.”

“If Thorin asks me directly, I am not good at lying,” Bombur warned as Dori climbed over the ramparts, rope coarse in his hands.

For only an instant Dori hesitated, imagining the look of betrayed fury on Thorin’s face. But he also knew what he looked like as he lay still in death, long hair and braids tangled and bloodied and the ground, and what he looked like in passion and the feel of his lips and that kept Dori going down.

“Be careful, Bombur,” he said. His descent was not graceful and he was glad as all dwarves were when his feet were back on the earth. The sun felt brighter after being in the mountain for so many mornings, and he had to shade his eyes to regain his bearings.

Setting off at a trot for the elf camp, he hoped that Bilbo would be where he expected him to be.

Before he reached the outskirts of the camp, several elves melted out of the air and stood in front of him. He recognized the one with flaming red hair, but not the other one who wore a helmet.

“Where go you, dwarf?” the helmeted one demanded, hand on his sword and Dori knew how quickly he could draw it.

“I wish to speak to Bilbo, the hobbit,” he said, standing his ground and his arms crossed over his chest. “It is urgent that I do so. And frankly, afterward I would like to speak to your king.”

For a moment the elves stood frozen.

“Come again?” the helmeted one demanded, incredulous.  “Our king does not need to speak to anyone. Besides which, you almost threw the hobbit to his death.”

“I did no such thing,” Dori said, wanting to defend Thorin but knowing he had neither the time, nor reason on his side. “We have traveled together for many months and I would speak to him.”

“Our people are almost at war,” Tauriel said and Dori turned his gaze over to her. She sounded sad but held herself posed and still and clearly still willing to fight. “And now you come out to make demands of us?”

“I would speak to our burglar,” Dori said, and the title that had almost started to sound fond over the course of the quest tasted like sawdust in his mouth now. Because Bilbo had truly become a burglar, but against them and not for them.

“And our king,” Tauriel pointed out. “I do not believe dwarves are in the habit of betrayal.”

“It is not betrayal that brings me here,” Dori ground out. “Now will you let me pass or no?”

The other elf opened his mouth, obliviously about to say no when Tauriel stepped in front of him. “Come,” she said and turned on her heel, so graceful Dori almost didn’t register the moment between when she was facing him and when she turned her back to him.

“Tauriel,” the helmeted elf hissed. “You have already lost enough favor, let alone to let a dwarf into our camp.”

“He seeks a friend,” she said, leveling the other with a long look and sweeping away. Dori followed quickly on her heels, eyes drifting up to see the sun higher than he wished it. Dain would be there within hours, and he had two camps to convince and move into position first.

“It is odd that you would come,” she said, as if hoping that someone else would have and Dori looked up at her sideways.

“Kili is well,” he said and was watching closely enough to see the shocked falter in her step. “He’s regained most of his strength.”

“I do not know—” she started to protest and obviously stopped herself. “Thank you.”

He shrugged, thankful when she stopped and motioned to a tent. “Bilbo has been sharing with Gandalf,” she said and Doriw scowled. “I wish you luck, in whatever you came for.”

“Thank you,” he said, not caring that he sounded surly as he pushed inside the tent. Gandalf was awake and smoking his pipe and Bilbo seemed to wake up out of sleep, sitting up when the light hit his face through the tent flap.

“Dori!” Bilbo said and Gandalf almost dropped the pipe.

“Why, whatever are you doing here?”

“Have you heard news yet from the North?” Dori asked, not bothering with greetings and ignored the way that Bilbo frowned slightly and Gandalf’s brows went up.

“No,” Gandalf said and Bilbo rubbed sleep out of his eyes, sliding out of bed and over to Dori.

“Dori,” Bilbo said, reaching out and his small hands rested on Dori’s arm. “Dori, I’m so glad to see you, you have to believe that I never meant for those things to happen, at least, not the way they did, I suppose I meant as much as anything to give the Arkenstone away, but certainly not to—”

Dori started at Bilbo, feeling Gandalf’s eyes on him and he could remember his anger, burning and sick underneath his breastbone. But the emotion felt distant, like he could see it waving at him from across the battlefield but he could no longer touch or smell it.

“Bilbo,” he cut him off instead and Bilbo looked up at him with wide eyes. “I cannot say I forgive you for what you did,” and Bilbo’s face fell, crestfallen. “But I cannot say I hate or resent you for it anymore, either.”

Blinking at him, Bilbo started to frown and Dori suppressed a sigh. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

Dori could see bruises around his neck, peeking out from the collar of his shirt and shook his head. “You said all you wanted was peace,” and Bilbo frowned, as if trying to remember when he would have said that to Dori but Dori only blazed on. “And right now that is all that matters.”

“And why is that?” Gandalf asked. “It is the dwarves that are holed up in the mountain.”

Even Bilbo turned to look at Gandalf. “Perhaps,” Dori ground out, more willing to assign blame to all the sides than he had once been. “But it is the elves who came with weapons to plunder the treasure of our people. If they had gotten here, and none where left alive, do you think they would have sent any of the gold to the Blue Mountains or the Iron Hills? Or would they have taken it all for themselves?”

Gandalf’s mouth twisted. “Yet Thorin—”

“Is not in his right mind,” Dori snapped and Bilbo’s eyes widened, even Gandalf surprised before he puffed particularly hard on his pipe. “But that is not the point. He may not be in his right mind, but he is not wrong either. Nor is Bard when he says that promises had been made to those of Laketown, and he did finally kill Smaug himself.” Though at least the dwarves had tried, even if the plan had always been doomed to failure. He hated to stand in the Hall of Kings and see the golden which had solidified on the floor, creating a golden pathway that led into the mountain.

“But he is willing to go to war,” Gandalf said.

“As are Bard and Thranduil,” Dori said. “We are all willing to go to war and it may be justified and it may not. But we are not the enemies.”

“Then who is?” Bilbo asked.

“The orcs and goblins coming from the north,” Dori said and Gandalf sat up straighter.

“How do you know of that?” Gandalf asked, and his eyes were intent with an inner fire so that Dori took a step back. Sometimes Gandalf acted so much like an old man that Dori forgot the times when his gaze sharpened and it was obvious there was something about him that was not quite human. For a second he thought he saw something flash on Gandalf’s hand but then it was gone.

Shaking his head slightly he met Gandalf’s eyes. “I cannot tell,” he said. “Only that something is coming and we have to stop it. Dain will be here within hours, and the orcs will follow. Unless we can coordinate, unless we can find a way to work together and support each other’s weaknesses, we—” he stopped because they had not technically fallen as a whole to the orcs. Only their shining princes. “Will lose more than we can afford,” he said finally.

“I will return in a moment,” Gandalf said, striding out of the tent and Dori could have sworn he was wearing a ring for a second.

Bilbo and Dori stared at each other. “I am sorry,” Dori said finally and was almost surprised to realize he meant it. “That Thorin almost threw you off the mountain.”

Bilbo’s hand raised to his throat unconsciously. “It’s fine,” Bilbo murmured, looking away and Dori felt sick to recognize the motion, both hands coming up to press against the back of his neck and he froze when Bilbo’s eyes darted back to him.

For a moment they stood like that, covering their own scars. “I guess it is not really fine,” Bilbo said after a beat and Dori looked away this time.

“You know,” Bilbo continued, shifting and Dori could hear the clink of the mithril shirt he wore. “I never really thought you liked me that much. Partly because you came into my home and started acting like the host there. I’m not sure dwarves view such a thing, but it’s very disrespectful among hobbits.”

“As it is with dwarves,” Dori admitted, remembering the way he had treated Gandalf like he was a guest in Dori’s own home, instead of in Bilbo’s.

“Right,” Bilbo said. “I mean, I think to think that in the end, many of us got along. But I never could tell with you.”

“Are you trying to understand why I have come to you?” Dori asked and Bilbo nodded. “Because you did want peace and because there are bigger things to be angry about now.”

Bilbo’s gaze dropped and he looked so unhappy that Dori reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder, though the gesture felt wooden and distant. “I may never understand hobbits,” Dori said and Bilbo’s eyes flickered up. “But I have come to respect you. Even when I don’t agree with you.”

Reaching a hand up, Bilbo wiped a stray tear from the corner of his eye and smiled and the sight of such simple tears shocked Dori. He opened his mouth to say something more when Gandalf swept back into the tent.

“Come now,” he said and strode away to Thranduil’s tent, Dori and Bilbo following him quickly and Tauriel falling into step with them from where she had been waiting by the tent flap. “I should have known,” Gandalf was muttering to himself. “I should have known this was where they were coming.”

“Did you get news?” Dori asked, jogging to catch up with Gandalf and he nodded. “I have heard it from the birds,” he said and Dori remembered seeing a moth around Gandalf sometimes that he had spoken too, whispering words in no language Dori could understand. “I asked the fastest I knew to bring me news.”

Just before they reached Thranduil’s tent, Gandalf’s hand clamped on to Dori’s shoulder. “Wait here,” he told the others and dragged Dori around the corner where no one else stood. “Dori, this is very important. How did you know?”

Dori stared at him and it took all his power not to hid the back of his neck behind his hands. “I am not a spy,” he spat.

Gandalf frowned before his eyes softened. “No,” he agreed. “But how did you know?”

Hesitating, Dori stared at him. Finally, he let out a long breath, feeling his lungs retract before speaking. “Have you ever heard of a situation,” he started. “Where someone relives a certain moment of time?”

“Relives?” Gandalf asked, eyes sharp. “How many times?”

“Many,” Dori said and Gandalf stared at him.

“It is a magic,” Gandalf said finally. “That is very old and not understood. The last account of it was only told on the person’s deathbed and the details lost long ago. It is a magic from the land itself, it seems.” He paused, stroking his beard and watching Dori. “How many times have you lived this day?”

“Too many,” Dori said and he wanted to run away from the look Gandalf gave him.

“Then do what you have to,” Gandalf said and Dori rocked a step back at the blanket permission coming from Gandalf. “Do whatever you have to.”

They entered Thranduil’s tent as a combined force.

The elf king huffed, and shook his head, and Bard frowned in distrustful confusion.

“Your greed—” Thranduil started, as if he could hold himself aloof and distant, wise as elves so often claimed to be.

“You’re one to talk,” Dori muttered darkly and Thranduil’s eyes narrowed at him underneath his dark brows. Gandalf’s hand squeezed the back of his shoulder and he clicked his mouth shut.

By the time that Dain arrived, they were still arguing, Thranduil demanding to know why Dori could speak for Thorin. When Dain arrived his smile was bitter and cold and Dori could see the greed for pale gems reflected in his eyes.

They did not win that day.

But Dori silenced Bombur with only a few words the next morning, and walked straight up to Tauriel, speaking only to her and ignoring her companion. He told Gandalf as soon as he entered the tent there was something in the North.

He focused on the memory of smashing Thranduil’s face in and bit back his anger. By the fourth day, he even knew what Thranduil wanted to hear. He made promises to Bard that he hoped he could keep.

On the sixth day he faced Dain with something like unity at his back.

That night he held Thorin as he stopped breathing, the rasp in his chest slowly stilling to nothing. “My sister-sons,” Thorin said.

“I don’t know,” Dori said, because he had last seen Fili grabbing Ori away from a warg and they had been separated, Dain’s troops coming between them and Thorin.

“Our people—” Thorin said.

“They are strong,” Dori said, smoothing his heavy hair away from his face. “They will survive everything.”

Thorin’s smile was faint and faded.

When Dori looked up, Thranduil stood there, and Dori tried not to take glee in the fact his long blond hair had blood in it, red and black and there were dents in his armor. Wiping his long blade off, he met Dori’s eyes. “You are rather loyal, aren’t you?”

“What does it matter to you?” Dori asked, anger under his skin.

Thranduil shrugged, a graceful roll of his shoulders. “He always did value it,” he said and Dori looked down because he hated to see something like understanding or sorrow in Thranduil’s expression. “Bard is dead,” he added and his voice did not rise or fall, but it echoed hollow and Dori lifted his eyes back up. “He died for the golden haired prince. You may wish to remember that when you treat with the humans.”

“I will not be the one treating with them,” Dori said faintly and Thranduil shrugged again.

The next day he knew exactly what to say to Thranduil to sway him.

-0-

It took him fifteen days until he had time to climb back up the rope before the orcs arrived, as dwarves and elves took up positions next to each other on the mountain side.

“What is happening?” Bombur asked as he appeared over the rampart. “Why is Dain not coming to help us?”

“Ask the ravens,” Dori said, breaking out into a run. The knowledge that he was closer than he ever had been before beat under his chest, in time to his heartbeat.

“What is Dain doing?” he heard Dwalin as he clattered into the guard house and Thorin whipped his head around.

“Where have you been?” he demanded and Dori caught sight of Ori’s wide eyes, and the way Nori stepped forward.

“Below,” Dori said and this was not the part he had ever planned for, how to explain everything with Dwalin watching him with dark eyes and his axe nearby and Thorin’s eyes looking wild in anger. “I must speak to you.”

“You _must_ speak to me?” Thorin sneered and Dori nodded. The moment stretched between them and snapped when Thorin finally nodded. “Fine.”

Dori turned on his heel, only having a moment to touch Ori and Nori’s arm before stepping down the stairs, not leading Thorin far away and certainly not toward the hallway he had before, and not toward the throne room.

Thorin’s eyes were dark when Dori stopped and turned back to him. “What have you to say?”

“Ask the ravens what is to the North if you must,” Dori said. “But there are orcs and wargs coming.” Thorin’s chin tilted back, his eyes still dark. “They will be here within an hour and they mean to kill us all.”

“That cannot be,” Thorin said, turning his head back up the way they had come and Dori caught his arm.

“You have to let me,” he started and the plan spilled from his mouth, telling Thorin where the dwarves and elves and men waited, where they would fight and the moment when they needed to come out of the mountain.

Thorin’s face twisted and Dori clutched to his plan like dry sand running through his fingers. “We have to fight for them,” Dori said. “With them. We cannot let them stand on their own.”

“They would have let us fall,” Thorin said, anger building behind his words. “If they had heard of such an army coming they would have waited for us to die and come only then. Like they abandoned us in the last war, they care nothing for our people.”

“That has no bearing on this moment,” Dori said. “The orcs are coming, we must fight, we must protect them as they are protecting us.”

“Why you do these things for these people—” Thorin thundered and Dori felt sick, all his work, weeks of preparation seeming to fall at his feet. He wanted to scream, to run, to hide until the battle was over. He wanted to throttle Thorin and kiss him.

“I care nothing for them!” he yelled, throwing his right arm out. “I care only for you. It has _always_ been _only_ you that I care for!” Thorin stopped as if Dori had struck him. “Everything I have done, everything that I am doing is for you, Thorin.”

A moment of silence stretched out between them, Thorin looking down at Dori, piles of gold behind him. He looked majestic enough Dori’s throat closed up. Taking a step down toward Dori, Thorin paused again. “Something’s happened,” he said and Dori took a shuddering breath as Thorin approached. “Your face,” Thorin said, cupping Dori’s cheeks and tilting his head back. “It is no different. There are no more lines than there used to be. But your eyes…”

“Please,” Dori choked out, his face collapsing. “Please, Thorin. Please trust me.” Thorin’s face was impassive but his hands had not moved. “Please,” Dori tried again, voice breaking. “Trust me.”

Thorin’s thumbs traced Dori’s cheekbones. “Please, Thorin.”

“Alright,” Thorin said finally and Dori sobbed before he caught himself. “Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Happy Groundhog Day by the way. 
> 
> (Written to "And the World was Gone" by Snow Ghosts and a lot of Kamelot, mostly "Mourning Star")


	6. Surely Things Shall Not Go Ill for Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's not a very funny story why this story hasn't updated since 2 February... (It being now 18 September) ~~I am so sorry oh my god.~~ This story was not supposed to take this long to update at any point, but for reasons of my own mental health I had to step away for a while.
> 
> Thank you for being patient (And hey I have like half of the next chapter already written plus I've broken through the block on Hobbit fanfiction finally soooo it shouldn't be another seven months again).
> 
> (Hey, remember those warnings? Awesome).

For the first time in a long time, Dori stood in front of the door and felt fear in his heart. He had worked so hard, for so long, and if things did not work on this day, he was not sure he could keep going. Gandalf had implied there was some way to break the cycle, and watching Thorin’s back Dori felt sick with hope.

He had never before realized that hope could make someone feel ill.

Beside him, Ori’s hand slid over into his own and squeezed. “Surely things shall not go ill for us,” Ori murmured and Dori tried not to stare at him. “Thorin seemed convinced the battle would go in our favor.”

“And I hope that it does,” Dori said,  voice strained and he thought he saw Thorin’s head tilt back toward him but Thorin did not fully turn.

Ori shook beside him and Dori wondered if they all died, if that would break the cycle as much as they all living might. “We’ll be fine,” he assured, squeezing Ori’s hand back and trying not to quake at the smile Ori offered him, so tentative and afraid. “We will,” Dori added, not thinking of the way that Ori had looked dead, laid out and cold and still.

He had been numb for so long the image had stopped mattering, except now it rose like bile at the back of his throat and he could not shake it. He felt like he stood on top of an abyss and he was either going to finally cross it or fall in.

“You sound so certain,” Ori whispered, voice wavering and Fili turned, before he obviously forced himself to stand by his uncle again and not run to Ori. Dori could not quite place if that irritated him or if he felt proud of the boy.

“I am most certain,” Dori said, and wondered if he failed today, if committing suicide instead of letting others kill him would break the cycle.

-0-

He was panicked, because he had lost sight of Thorin. He hoped desperately that he had not run straight for Bolg like usual, that Bard’s archers had taken the great orc down long before Thorin could reach him.

He ran blindly through the field, distantly noting where the various troops were where he had asked them to be, though the lines had melted slightly in the heat of battle. Remembering the view of the plain laid out from the top of the mountain, he felt a sick hope rise like a bubble in his chest as he ran.

If only he could find Thorin.

He saw Fili, hair tangled and streaked in red, arms covered in black, and he stood beside Kili, protecting him as he fired arrow after arrow. He was also, Dori noted, protecting Ori who was furiously swinging a hammer that Nori had probably given him. When one of Ori’s blows over balanced him, Fili’s knife felled the orc that tried to take advantage of his momentarily weakness.

“Please, please, please,” he realized he was chanting under his breath as he ran, looking everywhere for the swing of Thorin’s sword, or the call of his voice. “Please,” and a warg fell in front of him, revealing Thorin and Bilbo, fighting together. For a moment Dori stumbled but Thorin still stood and that was all that mattered.

He had a banner in one hand, one that had been part of Dain’s army, which meant he only had one hand for his sword. “To me!” Thorin thundered and several dwarves and a pair of willowy elves broke off from the mess around them to fall in beside him, Gloin in front with his flaming red hair and Dwalin never too far from Thorin’s side.

They were winning.

The bubble inside his chest, the fragile hope he had, felt like it was going to choke him.

Suddenly he had to fight not to die, for the first time in a long time. He could not risk being stabbed in the back, or taking an arrow through his throat. Tucking his chin down, he barreled to Thorin’s side, beside Bilbo and Dwalin and lost himself in the rise and fall of the battle.

Thorin stood as if calm in the center of the storm, holding the banner aloft and commanding. Sometime, as the sun was lowering in the sky, Thranduil joined their party, armor gleaming even under the orc blood, and his blond son at his heels. He pointed his long sword toward the front of the orcs, who were desperately trying to regroup. “Together,” he said and Thorin tilted his head back, rage still swimming behind his head. “We unite and break their center before splitting our forces in two again to attack each flank.”

“Together?” Thorin asked and Thranduil’s smile was chilly and triumphant.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” he said, his son giving his back a hard look.

Thorin gestured with the banner, stepping back and barking orders, Dain’s troops falling in with them, the humans splitting between the two columns.

They had not reached Bolg’s guard before Beorn came thundering out of the forest. Dori caught the back of Bilbo’s jacket, yanking him out of the way as the hobbit stumbled in surprise.

He saw nothing except orcs and flashes of Thorin until suddenly there were no more orcs in front of him, and eagles circled the sky. “Thorin,” he said, Bilbo still at his side but Thorin nowhere nearby. “Where is,” he started, desperation in his voice that took Bilbo by surprise.

“There,” he said, pointing with a shaking hand and Dori saw the banner before he saw Thorin.

It was planted into the ground and Thorin leaned heavily against it, blood leaking in to one eye but he stood still, and Dori collapsed on the ground. He watched Dwalin approach Thorin, saw the tiny smile Thorin gave the other dwarf and he couldn’t get air into his lungs.

“Dori?” Bilbo asked, his own legs seeming to have given out as well, as his voice came from directly beside Dori. “Is it over?”

“I don’t know,” he managed, racking his eyes over Thorin again and again, wondering if there was some wound that he simply couldn’t see, if Thorin might not crumple at any moment. It had taken him days to die the first time as well. “I don’t know,” and Bilbo let out a tiny sound that might have been a whimper.

“Thorin!” Fili yelled, running up. “Thorin, you’re,” he started and his uncle moved, the banner falling to the earth for the first time since Thorin had picked it up as he swept his nephew into his arms. “Uncle,” Fili managed, weakly, their armor clanking and they both looked like they ached too much for the embrace to be comfortable.

“Kili?” Thorin asked after a beat and Fili drew back. Dori’s hand came up to press against his chest, because Ori had been with Fili and Kili too.

“He’s back with Oin,” Fili said after a beat, and swallowed hard. “Ori too.”

Dori was on his feet and staggering forward. “Ori?” he demanded. “Ori and Kili…?”

“They’re alive,” Fili said and Dori almost collapsed again, Thorin obviously sagging. “But they’re both…” and he trailed off, looking helpless.

“I must get back,” Thorin said, exhaustion around the edges of his voice. “Help me—” he started and Dori leaned forward, shouldering one of Thorin’s arms.

“I’ll get you back,” he said, and Thorin looked at him with dark eyes, barely reflecting the torch light.

They staggered back across the field, Dwalin and Fili flirting in and out of Dori’s view, and he thought he could hear the small footsteps of Bilbo behind them. “Where is Kili?” Thorin demanded the instant they were near the base of the mountain, tents already up and healers working by torchlight.

“There,” the dwarf said, holding out a shaking hand and Dori had to support Thorin to the tent.

“Sit down,” Oin yelled over his shoulder, taking one look at Thorin. But Dori barely even saw Kili, because Ori was laying beside him, face turned to one side and pale, an ugly wound taking up his left leg. He dropped Thorin in an ungainly heap and managed to make it to Ori’s side before he collapsed again. Oin was there within moments. “I sent someone looking for Nori,” he said, in his element, when everyone had to listen to him and not the other way around. “You need to hold him, you’re strong enough.”

“What?” Dori managed and Fili was there again, moving more freely than most, despite the shallow wound on his scalp where blood had seeped into his hair.

“Hold him down,” Oin said. “The leg, it’s poisoned.”

“Kili was poisoned too,” Fili said. “The elf—”

“It’s a different poison,” Oin said, oddly patient sounding. “It might kill him before we find her.”

“But,” Fili floundered again and Dori only nodded, not paying attention to anything else around them but Oin and Fili, and Ori’s pale face.

The lavender was still in his hair and Dori paused before fishing the medallion out of Ori’s open shirt. He had been stripped out of his armor already. He passed it, still around Ori’s neck to Fili. “Help me,” he said and Fili gaped at him, gripping the metal compulsively before he nodded.

Even though Ori had been laying so still, breathes shallow in his chest, he thrashed around and screamed in pain as Oin cut flesh out of his leg, Dori holding him down by the shoulders. Fili cleaned his face, dropping cool water where Oin directed, and holding Ori’s face, murmuring to him the whole time even when Ori’s eyes were glazed over with pain.

In the end he lost half his leg, cut off at the knee.

Oin forced him and Fili to be seen to next, Dori not having noticed the slashes along his arm, and the long wound across his stomach that Oin tsked over darkly. It had not been poisoned, but already threatened to be infected and Oin spent what seemed like an eternity cleaning it out and smearing something that smelled over it before bandaging his whole stomach.

Dori barely realized that he staggered out of the tent into the brief darkness before dawn. All he saw was more darkness. Thorin caught him when he tripped, covered in blood of the battle and his brother. “I can take him,” he heard Nori say.

“No,” Thorin rumbled, Dori clinging to him. “I will see him inside.”

Thorin laid him down on the bed, made of fur and stone, just as dawn broke outside the mountain.

-0-

Dori woke up and for a long moment did not dare to open his eyes. He felt cotton against his skin, long bandages wrapped around his arm and shoulder, more across his thigh and chest and furs beyond that. Breathing, he focused on the feeling of not waking in armor.

He tried to focus, to remember what had happened. Thorin, he remembered, Thorin had held him before he slept. He had heard Nori’s voice so he was still alive, but Ori… he choked to remember the hellish hours, Fili at his side and Oin slowly working his way through the bone.

But he was not wearing armor and he could not hear the birds, Thorin speaking to the raven or Ori and Fili softly speaking. He was shaking before he slowly opened his eyes, hewn stone above him.

It was long past dawn and he lay in no guard tower, with no armies camped out below them. Scrambling out of the furs, he barely paid attention to the pain from his wounds as he roughly yanked on clothing. He idly wondered if the outfit was from Dain’s supplies.

“Dori?” a sleepy voice asked him, Nori rolling over at blinking at him and Dori collapsed to his knees, dragging Nori into a hug that made his brother yelp.

“What has gotten into you?” Nori demanded, carefully trying to shove him back, though Dori noted his hands were shaking too. His hair was a mess, clumps missing and he had slept on it without brushing it out or trying to compensate for the missing strands.

“I am,” Dori choked. “So glad to see you.”

Nori swallowed hard, knocking their foreheads together and they clung to each other. “Ori,” Dori managed finally.

“He was alive,” Nori said, fingers digging in to the back of Dori’s neck from where his hand had been resting. “Oin says… he’s strong. He has a good chance of making it still.”

“I need to,” Dori started and Nori nodded.

“Be careful of your own wounds.”

Dori froze for a moment by the doorway, his hands shaking because he feared that at any instant he would close his eyes and open them again to the guard house, to the dawn. “Thorin?” he asked after a moment.

“He’s alive,” Nori said, something angry and bitter behind his words.

Dori closed his eyes before forcing them back open in fear.

He wound his way out of the mountain, barely remembering how he reached those rooms, and not bothering to dwell on how Nori found him there. If Nori was good at anything, it was finding what he wanted to find when he wanted to find it.

The camp was still busy, and this Dori remembered from the first time, when they had worked for days moving bodies, burning the orcs and burying the others. There were armies to feed, supplies that had to be sent with haste to the Lake Town refugees.

Dori found Thorin in front of the tent he hoped he recognized from the night before, Fili laid out with his head in his lap, sleeping as Thorin smoked a pipe with shaking fingers. It was not the pipe Thorin had carried with him for many years.

Dori froze in front of him, unable to move one way or the other until Thorin finally looked up. “Dori,” he said, and there was something in his voice, buried under the exhaustion and the pain and Dori refused to think on it.

“Thorin,” he said instead, voice quavering.

“Sit,” Thorin urged, and Dori did, Fili shifting for a moment before settling back down and continuing to sleep. “Oin was just out. Ori is sleeping still, he said. But he’s hopeful.”

Dori nodded, numb and feeling like every bone in his body was too heavy for him, because Thorin was there, and his eyes were clearer than Dori had seen them in what felt like an age. Had it only been a mere handful of days to everyone else, since they first spotted the Lonely Mountain?

“You may need this more than me,” Thorin said after a moment, holding the pipe out to Dori, who took it thankfully.

“Whose is it?” he asked, the first words he had said since he sat.

“I found it,” he said. “In some of the supplies. It may have belonged to one of the dead but I do not know.”

Dori nodded and carefully blew the smoke out before taking another deep pull. “How…” he started and had to take another drag before he could finish the question. “How do we stand?”

“Dain is dead,” Thorin said, looking back away at where others were moving quickly. “Bard too.”

“Thranduil?” Dori asked, sure it was too much to hope for.

“He lives,” Thorin said, mouth twisting. “Ironic.” Dori almost choked, remembering the elf king standing arrogant even surrounded by death and with his sardonic smile. “Many of his do not though. I cannot…” he shook his head. “I cannot begrudge him.”

“And ours?” Dori asked.

“Gloin,” Thorin said, and every line in his body was exhausted. “Bifur and Bofur.”

Dori hung his head, remembering Gloin’s small boy, full of red hair and already with a proud beard, insisting if Ori was old enough to go, then he was. He remembered Bifur’s toys, strange, swirling creatures that sometimes frightened him, and sometimes made his heart ache.

He thought of Nori and wanted to cry, because Nori had always sought out Bofur’s company, had smiled more and laughed more. Bofur had packed his flute, even on a quest, and sometimes would laugh so hard he would fall over. “Oh, Bombur,” he managed and Thorin nodded slightly. “And Kili?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“He is blind,” Thorin said, softly and Dori handed him back the pipe because there was nothing else he could do, Fili still sleeping. “His eyes were destroyed and his face… perhaps it is a good thing he cannot see himself any more. But he is alive.”

“Like Ori,” Dori said softly, and despite that, he could not stop staring at Thorin because he was alive and Dori had woken up inside the mountain, wearing only bandages and not armor.

He stayed up until it was dawn again, Nori fussing and complaining that he had to take care of himself, and sleep and heal and he could not understand why Dori insisted on still being awake.

Even when he had laid down, it was many hours before he finally fell into sleep, his heart in his throat.

His hands were shaking when he woke up, pressing them flat against the fur. He sought out Thorin again, finding him in conference with Dwalin. He hung back, confirming that Thorin was alive and hale before seeking Ori, finding Fili sitting beside him.

“Ori might not want me to tell you,” Fili started, hesitating because he had been holding Ori’s hand.

“I know,” Dori said, cutting him off and Fili’s eyes widened before he looked back down at Ori’s still form.

“I had wondered,” he said quietly. “When you looked at me and handed me the…” and he broke off. “I’m glad,” he said, almost viciously and there was exhaustion in every line of his body too. “I hate hiding. It seemed like a better idea but…”

Dori swallowed, awkwardly reaching a hand out to him.

Before the sun set, Ori woke up.

Dori couldn’t sleep again.


	7. But as Long as that Simply Remained One Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Staggers forward and collapses* 
> 
> I cannot even begin to describe my feelings at having this story done. On the plus side, I managed to complete it while achieving two of the major goals I had for it: A) Write a story longer than "When Each Breath Counts" which at 21,800 words for three stories was the longest fic I had written in a long time and B) Finish it before the third Hobbit movie came out and shattered my construction of the battle timeline (Though I must have reread the scene in the book about ten times writing this... in the Annotated Edition no less).

 They rebuilt. Dori tried not to leave the mountain as much as possible, because looking at the former battlefield sometimes almost knocked him off his feet. Too many places where he saw death, too many different spots where he had died.

Every morning he woke up, tense and counting down until he was calm enough to take stock of the fact he wore no armor, there was no dawn, and he was where he had gone to sleep. After several weeks, Balin stopped him in the hallway, eyes worried. “You look like you have not slept since the battle,” he said, for there were dark circles under Dori’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” he said, and they were both too busy for Balin to push.

The humans were spending the winter in the mountain, a situation that made no one very happy but they had no homes to go back to. The elves, meanwhile, were finally leaving and Dori emerged with everyone else to watch them go.

“Thorin, King Under the Mountain,” Thranduil said, smile still cold and sharp as he looked at Thorin. “I suppose this is farewell for now.”

“Yes,” Thorin agreed, but there was no rage in the space between them.

Beside them and to the side, Kili had come out, tilting his scared face back to feel the weak wintery sun, though he could no longer see it. The red haired captain of the guard wavered in front of him, holding one of his hands.

“I suppose you’ll have to care of yourself,” Kili said, trying for one of his smiles.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I suppose you’ll have to do the same then.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t see the starlight with you,” he said after another moment and she flinched, barely there and gone but it made her entire frame quiver.

Tauriel, Dori’s mind supplied past the memories of war and watching her stand with the sun setting behind her in the middle of corpses, her name was Tauriel. He did not want to hear her reply and turned away instead, walking back inside the mountain.

He visited Ori, though he often felt like stone sitting there, wordless and immovable. Sometimes he simply watched Ori breathing as he slept and it felt like a dream. Any moment he would wake up, the fragile peace around him would be shattered and Thorin would be bent over, speaking to a crow.

Every day he woke up and it was not the guard house felt like borrowed time.

“What’s wrong?” Nori asked, and Dori blinked at him. “You’ve not been yourself.”

“Haven’t I?” Dori asked, a stupid question as Nori’s narrowed eyes attested to. He stood, watching his brother, Bofur’s scarf wrapped around his neck and tucked into his jacket. There was a hole in it, which Nori had obviously patched enough to keep it from unraveling the entire thing, and he had carefully washed it until it felt supple again, not stiff with dirt and gore. At first Dori had barely recognized it and now he could not look away from it.

Bofur had lived the first time, he remembered. He had seen Bofur and Nori sitting together at the end, exhausted and bloody by alive. He had changed that, he and whatever magic had been at work. What sort of a god was he, to play with mixing up who lived and who died?

He bowed his head and stopped talking until Nori finally gave up and left again.

“You’re not yourself,” Ori said, still pale and his face more gaunt than it ever had been before. Fili himself was working to make a leg for Ori, but in the meantime, he had a pair of beautifully designed crutches. His healing had been interrupted by an infection, but that had finally been driven off and he was slowly learning to walk with the crutches.

He and Kili could often be seen, frustrated, as they tried to teach each other how to walk again.

For a long moment, Dori did not know what to say. He did not want to lie to Ori. “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” he said, finally.

“That joke,” Ori said, and his voice broke. “Stopped being funny years ago.”

-0-

 Erebor limped through the winter. During the day, crews of the humans would go to the ruins of Dale, working on the old frames that had not burned away, and coming back to the warm mountain at night. They were strained for food, and everyone was on rations, and the humans and dwarves lived as far apart as they could in what little space had been appropriated from the mountain. But there were no fights beyond the petty squabbles that arose from everyday living, and when they left in the spring, the two peoples were still allies.

Dis had sent word that she would bring what dwarves wished to come from the Blue Mountains with her when the passes were cleared. They would have a long road, but perhaps not as long as the one that the company had taken. Dori wondered how they would be greeted at the edges of Mirkwood, considering they were now allies and the forest had been cleared of at least some foul influence. He thought of the red haired captain of the guard, stepping forward to greet Dis who would be leading the refugees home, of the elves guiding them through the forest. Perhaps Tauriel and Dis would have something to talk about in the shape of Kili.

Slowly the days of winter leeched toward spring, and one night he went to sleep and woke up as if it was just another day, with no fear, no baited breath. The next morning he woke in a panic that he had become complacent.

“Am I old enough?” Ori asked, wryly and Dori shook his head.

When Fili came one day, bearing gifts of beads for Ori’s hair, and more purple ribbons, Ori blushed from where he had moved in with his brothers and shot Dori a panicked look.

“I know,” Dori said, shaking his head and both Nori and Ori stared at him.

“You do?” Ori asked, wrinkling his nose. “ _When_? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Yes,” Nori growled. “Why didn’t you?” He was glaring at Fili, who at least stood calmly in front of him, stance relaxed but it was obvious from the way he moved he could drop into a fighting stance or run at any time. It was simply the way he always moved now, Dori noticed.

But Dori would never tell the moment he realized his brother was in love with a prince, because Ori had been dead, and he had heard the sounds of a broken man. He could never explain to Nori why he believed so full heartedly that Fili’s affections were true, because Nori had never seen the wildness in his eyes or watched him fall apart.

“You will not hurt him,” he warned, and Fili dipped his chin down in agreement.

He made a leg of iron and silver for Ori, with straps to fit it around his thigh. It hurt, and rubbed raw sometimes, but Dori had never seen anything like it, and it allowed Ori to move about as freely as he could.

There was no such easy cure for Kili’s eyes.

-0-

Every morning, Dori wandered the halls of Erebor until he saw Thorin, heard his voice echo to where he stood. But he never stayed, never approached or spoke to him. He had watched from afar for many years, and though he felt a string tugging at his chest every morning until he set eyes on the king, he was well used to staying away, quiet.

Sometimes when he still couldn’t sleep he thought about Thorin looking at him with warm eyes, filled with desire saying _we will have years yet_. On the floor of Erebor, war waiting outside for them and Thorin had kissed him like he was loved.

But that had been another life, an aborted life, one where Thorin died.

_No battle could keep me from you._

_You have to be a good king._

He turned over in frustration and screamed into the furs he slept on.

-0-

Bilbo sought him out one day. “I’m returning to the Shire,” he said. “I’ve been gone too long.”

“I had thought you might stay,” Dori said, because Bilbo had stood next to Thorin in the middle of battle, had fought at his arm and kept the banner high as Thorin thundered at the soldiers around them to press forward, to keep fighting.

Bilbo only shook his head. “No. I have been gone too long. I should have set out long ago but,” and he shrugged, because he had sat with Ori and Kili for many nights, had hovered around Thorin through the process of getting the kingdom set up right again. “I did,” and he hesitated. “I wanted to say. That what you did… I wanted to thank you for it.”

“Thank me?” Dori asked, staring at him.

Nodding, Bilbo reached out and took one of his hands in both of his smaller ones. “Yes. I guess I had not fully expected a dwarf to be so willing to work with the elves and men like that. I am glad you did. If the battle had gone otherwise,” he trailed off with a tiny shudder and Dori almost wanted to tell him. “And I had never thought you liked me that much. I am glad…” and he tipped his chin down. “That I was forgiven.”

Dori patted his hands awkwardly. “I wish you every joy in the world,” he said finally and Bilbo blinked up at him. “And all the luck when you return home. I had forgiven you a long time ago.”

“It hasn’t quite been that long,” Bilbo said with a tiny smile and Dori did not correct him. He stood with Bombur and Ori on the day Bilbo set off for home.

-0-

Eventually he stopped being able to run, Thorin summoning him. It seemed Thorin had noticed his distance as well, and had been allowing him space and time. The thought made Dori grit his teeth.

 “Your diplomacy,” Thorin said, and Dori watched him rise from his throne, the heavy robes of state draped over his shoulders and raven crown on his brow. “Is what saved us all.”

“Please,” Dori shook his head and took a full step back. “I barely did a thing.”

Thorin laughed and it was a sound that made Dori’s chest hurt in how much he never thought to hear it again for a while. “Barely a thing?” he said, descending the stairs and Dori was glad they were alone, even though the chamber was large. “You think you did so little? You single handedly seem to have created alliances—which have lasted it might be added—that won the battle for us.”

Dori looked away and felt Thorin’s hands on his face, pulling him back around to look at Thorin’s eyes. “Why are you so reluctant to take credit for the things you have done? You’ve been hiding since then, even Ori is worried. He keeps coming to see me, to ask me to help you but I don’t know how.”

“I need no help,” Dori said, automatic.

Thorin’s expression become unbearably fond and Dori forced himself not to jerk away, not to run all the out of the mountain. “It is not weak to accept help, especially not from your king.”

Dori’s stomach twisted itself up into fearful knots. He had made Thorin king, but he still remembered the madness in his eyes, the way he had so callously allowed death into his home. “I am fine,” he insisted even though it was clear to everyone he was not.

Frowning, Thorin dropped his hands and stepped back, finally allowing Dori to breathe again. “You fought at the gates of Moria with me, I remember. And yet, even though you have faced battle before, and though you were the one whose plan saved us, you are the worst off of us all. I have nightmares,” he admitted, eyes distant. Dori shivered. “Of what day, of what I was so close to doing and sometimes in those dreams I see Fili and Kili fallen before me, or that I myself am dying. I know it was a hard battle. Yet none but you hurts still so. What happened, Dori?”

“Please,” Dori said, strained. “Do not ask me.”

Arms folded over his chest, Thorin’s brows drew closer together. “Now I must ask you, if I had not already been so inclined.”

Looking away, Dori stared across the walkway toward several of the imposing statues and Thorin watched him in silence for a moment that stretched until it broke between them. “Come,” Thorin said finally, hand resting on Dori’s shoulder and guiding him behind the throne and along the walkway. “We should talk somewhere more comfortably anyway.”

Dori went with him easily, though his steps were heavy. Thorin ushered him into a sitting room, so clearly his own that Dori had to stop at the threshold, feeling like he walked into far too intimate a space before Thorin gently pushed him all the way in. “Sit,” he said and Dori obeyed. “Now what troubles you so?”

Dori pulled at the bottom of his beard, feeling the beads that Fili had gifted him with, heavy silver and pewter. It was a habit he had never had before but now he kept touching it, to make sure his beard was really pristine and that it was held together by good metal instead of twine. Another nervous tick that he could not shake anymore. “I am not good at diplomacy,” and Thorin’s brows went up in disbelief. “I know what you wanted to do—suggest I become and advisor, a diplomat in your court but I am anything but good at negotiation.”

“Not good?” Thorin asked. “Have you taken a hit to the head so hard you forgot your own actions?”

“No,” Dori snapped, because it would be a relief if he had “But—I failed too many times.” Thorin sat back, clearly not understanding and Dori hesitated, fear closing down his throat. “I do not,” he started. “I do not know what happened, even now. I know not which magic might have caused it. But what you see as my great triumph was anything but that. Because there must have been a hundred days in which I failed.”

“A hundred days?” Thorin asked, focusing on the last thing said and unable to make sense of any of it.

Dori inclined his head, hand tugging on his beard again, anchoring himself in this moment. “I go to sleep terrified,” he admitted. “That I will wake up again and it will be that morning.” Thorin carefully held himself still, allowing Dori to say what he wanted. “You think I am a great diplomat now,” Dori said. “Only because you did not see the times that I failed. The battle… I lived it once and you died,” he said, Thorin’s stillness changed though he did not move. “You and Fili and Kili, like the dream you said you have. But at the end of the day I went to sleep and I woke up and it was the morning of the battle again.”

He took a deep breath, pressing on. “I lived and died on the field before Erebor hundreds of times. I watched you die, and I watched everyone die. I held Ori’s broken body in my hands,” and his voice broke, Thorin watching him with dark eyes as he gathered himself and continued. “You give me credit for something that took me weeks to achieve. Fifteen nights, nine deaths,” he said. “I started with Thranduil, until I knew exactly what I had to say to him, to make him agree the fastest. I learned early that Bilbo could only help my cause, especially with Gandalf who was only too willing to be convinced. It was trial and error, not skill.”

Thorin watched him, completely still and Dori swallowed hard. “I am not mad,” he said, voice faint. “But neither have I done great things.”

“And me?” Thorin asked, and Dori’s eyes snapped up. “When you came to me? How many times did you practice that?” There was thunder in his voice, hints of betrayal in his expression and a darkness at being manipulated.

Dori stared, breath stuttering in his lungs. “Once,” he said, eying the careful way Thorin held himself. “Only once. I swear to that, though I could hardly believe it myself.”

“The things you said,” Thorin said, still poised and unmoving. “Where they what you thought I wanted to hear then, the fastest way you thought to convince me?”

“No!” Dori burst out and shifted back. “Yes, in some ways. But I meant them, too,” he said, voice getting fainter but he thought he saw Thorin relax slightly. “I meant everything that I said to you. I would not lie to you, Thorin.”

“Why have you held this secret?” Thorin asked, rising again and Dori tilted his throat back to watch his movements.

“Because I cannot explain it,” he said. “To live a single day hundreds of times. To live that battle,” and suddenly Thorin was in front of him, dropping to his knees and dragging Dori forward, their foreheads knocking together and his arms around Dori’s shoulder.

“The burdens you have borne,” Thorin whispered and Dori shook along his entire body.

“You’re alive,” he whispered, closing his eyes instead of trying to focus on Thorin’s. He had the other dwarf’s face memorized and seeing it so close only hurt. “That’s what matters,” and his hands came up to twist in the fabric on Thorin’s back, heavy with a thick weave. “You’re actually alive.”

“I owe you an even bigger debt that I had imagined,” Thorin said, hands coming up to frame Dori’s face, foreheads still pressed together.

“I saw you die,” Dori said. “I saw everyone die. I killed Thranduil once myself,” he added and Thorin drew back in surprise. “I gave up,” Dori admitted, daring to meet his eyes. “I failed so many times I gave all of it up.”

Thorin watched him before he moved back, knocking their heads gently together again. “But you decided to fight again,” he murmured and Dori felt like the edges of his control fraying and falling apart the longer Thorin looked at him with something like understanding. “I owe you my life, and that of my sister-sons.”

“You actually believe me,” Dori choked. “You didn’t once.”

“I am sorry for that,” Thorin said and it was too much, Dori’s fingers digging into his shoulders. He had been too frightened after the first morning and Thorin knew not what he was apologizing for.

“You can’t say that,” he forced out, voice fragmenting. “You don’t know the things I did, that I was willing to do.” Or the things Thorin himself had done.

“Hush,” Thorin said, hands sliding around to cup the back of Dori’s head, thumbs resting near his ears. “That does not matter now. You are free of the war and can heal, as we all can now. We will rebuild Erebor and we will have peace.”

For a long moment they sat like that, Thorin kneeling in front of Dori and Dori felt terrified, to have spilled out his secrets so quickly, and relieved for someone to finally know. One of his hands slid behind his neck, pressing down on the faint hurt and he forced his eyes up to meet Thorin’s, their hands almost touching.

 “I laid with you,” he said and Thorin’s head snapped back in surprise, eyes widening. “One morning. I thought, if I could not have peace at least I could have something so long as I was lost in a cycle I could never break.”

Thorin might have been stone he was so still, eyes wide and Dori kept talking because he was as afraid of revealing more as he was of stopping and letting Thorin catch his footing. “I took you away from the others, and I kissed you where you stood in front of piles of gold, because I had wanted for so long and I thought it was time enough to have but I should not have done it. For you do not remember but I do and I cannot let you stare at me as if I was a hero when I have—”

Finally, Thorin cut him off by slamming their mouths together, hands still behind Dori’s head.

Dori was still as surprised as the first time.

But he could still feel the heat of Thorin’s gaze on him, the way the other had felt as he had pressed him against the stone of that random hallway. One time, Dori had wandered, trying to see if he would recognize it in this life time, but could not find the spot again. If he had not already changed too much.

“Thorin,” he managed when the king drew back enough for them both to pant.

“How long?” Thorin demanded and the echo of the question made Dori shiver.

“Years,” he answered, much as he had last time and just as honest.

Thorin kissed him again, pressing his shoulders back into the chair and Dori twined his hands around his waist. He frantically tried to remind himself that Thorin was going to remember this, he would wake up tomorrow and Thorin would remember his confession, would remember the taste of his kisses.

He could no longer recall if that was a bad or good thing.

He felt overwhelmed, like Thorin was a wave that crashed over him and dragged him out to sea in his undertow.

“You have been,” Thorin said finally, pinning him to the chair still. “Part of my heart for years as well. There has never been another like you.”

Dori stared at him, still unable to believe it with all the evidence spread before him and tucked away in words only he remembered.

“I’m not,” he started, and Thorin silenced him with a look. Dori gave up, tilting his head back and allowing himself the thing he had wanted, the thing he had fought for.

 _Be a good king_ , he thought, fingers tangled in Thorin’s mass of hair, still wild around his face even as king, knocking the crown back and off. The clatter of it hitting the floor barely registered to either of them.

-0-

Dori sat, looking out at the window in Thorin’s chambers, which were near the peak of the mountain, atop the entire city. Behind him, Thorin slept, sprawled out on his back with his hair in piles around his face, a long braid draped across his chest.

Listening to him softly breathe, Dori watched the sun rise through the window before he leaned over suddenly and shook Thorin awake.

“What is it?” he rumbled, blinking up at Dori before smiling, as if only just remembering the night before.

“Have you ever watched the sun rise?” Dori asked and Thorin quirked his brows up, obviously confused.

“Perhaps?” he said. “I do not recall.”

Dori pulled him up and fussed over him until they sat side by side facing the window as the sky turned pink around the corners, chasing away the dark of night. “Sometimes,” Dori said. “It is good to appreciate such things.”

“Yes,” Thorin agreed and Dori turned, sliding their mouths together.

-0-

He still avoided Dwalin to everyone’s minor confusion, and he still woke up in a panic as often as not. But it became easier, to have Thorin there the instant he opened his eyes, steady and solid. He refused diplomatic credit, or even to help Thorin now in his dealings with the other parties.

“The only reason I could deal with the elf king,” he admitted in the dark one night. “Was because I had smashed his face in another life.”

There was a moment of shocked silence before Thorin’s rumbling laughter greeted him. “I am sorry,” he said, turning over and his body was warm where his skin pressed against Dori’s. “That you lived through such things, to say that you killed a creature that lives today. But,” and he laughed again. “I cannot say it would not make it easier for me to deal with him as well.”

Sometimes Dori trusted Thorin enough to give him glimpses of the past, feeling a slow weight lift off his chest the more he spoke of it, through he refused to tell anyone else. But other things he never told Thorin, and some days he looked at him, traced the features of his face and feared him. Because he could remember the gold sickness, the madness and the rage, what had happened and what had almost happened.

Some days he was still afraid.

He wondered what would happen, if Thorin slipped again, when he had put him there. If his selfishness would be worth the price he might pay.

But as long as that remained simply _one day_ , it did not matter.

On days when Thorin stood, reflecting the light of Erebor and smiling at him, any price seemed worth it to pay.  


End file.
